


Of Hurt, Comfort, and Whumptober Prompts

by SabbyStarlight



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: 1x07 Can Opener, And More Fluff, And me playing with my favorite villain from Season Two, Angst, Asphyxiation, Because she needs one, Blood, Broken Bones, Bromance, Brotherly Banter, But not exactly, Concussions, Does Jack's Shelby have her own character tag yet?, Don't try this at home..., Drugged Jack, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Expanding on THAT scene in 1x12, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fulff, Gen, Gore, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Jack, Hurt Mac, Hurt/Comfort, Jack being his typically stubborn self, Kinda non-consensual drug use, Knife Wound, Mac being his typically stubborn self, More knife wounds, Murdoc being his usual creepy self, PTSD, Questionable First Aid and Science, Seriously y'all, Sorry Jack, Stitches, Super unsafe medical procedures, Torture, Unconsciousness, Whumptober 2019, ambulance rides, broken ribs, drugged Mac, laced drink, slight non-con touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-09 02:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 36,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20846126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyStarlight/pseuds/SabbyStarlight
Summary: Thirty-one days of whumpy, bromancy, Mac and Jack fics.Happy Whumptober, y’all!





	1. Shaky Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I decided that MacGyver was the perfect fandom to do Whumptober for. I mean, almost every episode starts out with a random little snippet of a mission, right? Those cold open gambits? So, while I don’t have the time to write 31 full fics, I’m gonna try to do a little ficlet in the style of some of our favorite MacGyver opening scenes for each prompt. All focusing on whump in various degrees, some lighthearted, some more serious, but since they are shorter fics than my usual, expect them to be light on things like plots and backstory. I'm trying to keep the playing field even and beat up on Mac and Jack equally, but it's me so Mac's probably gonna get the worst of it.

Mac wasn’t exactly sure when he had stopped breathing.

That was pretty much the first thing they taught you in EOD training: not to hold your breath. He can still hear Al’s voice from class that first week, “Do not hold your breath. You hear me? I don’t care what your instincts tell you, it doesn’t help you think, won’t steady your hands, won’t clear your head, won’t make that bomb any less deadly. Only thing it will do is cause you to lose focus, or, worse case scenario, cause you to black clear out. And a fat lot of good you’re gonna do for the civilians around you, for your teammates counting on you, if you’re unconscious because you forgot to do something you’ve been doing literally as long as you’ve been alive. Do not hold you’re breath.”

He didn’t even realize that he had broken that cardinal rule until it was over and he was left staring at the bomb in front of him, still holding onto one of the bright yellow wires. He watched, idly, as it trembled in his grip. Forcing himself to let go, to take another breath, he pulled his gaze away from the mess of tangled wires and instead caught a glimpse of the countdown screen. Time was a relativity, he knew that, but he could have sworn that this particular clock had been going faster than any other he had ever disarmed. The numbers stared back at him, blessedly still. 1.23

Mac couldn’t help but laugh, a harsh, dry, humorless bark, at the irony of the sequential numbers before him, as he forced himself to draw in another breath and look around the building he was in. Through the cafeteria doors, he could see the entrances to two classrooms, just two of the many in the school. There was a water fountain between the rooms, hung low on the wall. Paper cutout handprints lined the hallway, brightly colored with scribbles of innocence. 1.23. The same numbers that were being taught to the students just behind those walls. Children, innocent lives, that would have been taken out if he hadn’t been able to do his job. 1.23. This time it had been way too close.

As if he could read his mind, could hear the destructive spiral Mac’s thoughts were taking, Jack kneeled beside him on the cold linoleum times. One hand reached out, slowly, and came to rest on the back of Mac’s neck while the other carefully pried the SAK out of Mac’s fingers, snapping closed the wire-cutter feature with a careful flick of his thumb.

It didn’t move as much, once it was in Jack’s hand, Mac noticed. It had been practically vibrating in his own, but it never crossed his mind to think that maybe it was his hands, not the knife, that was shaking.

“Is it over?” A nervous voice asked. Mac traced the sound up to the woman, in a navy blue suit, a few curls escaping what had once been a perfectly constructed bun at the nape of her neck. The school’s principal, he remembered, standing across from him on the other side of the bomb that had been planted in her school. She was close to Jack’s age, Mac guessed, and pretty. If the situation they had found themselves in hadn’t been so dire, Jack would have been instantly enamored.

Mac couldn't pull his eyes away from the shiny little broach she wore on the lapel of her jacket. An apple, red, the same color as his knife.

Red apple, blue suit, yellow wires. Primary colors. Elementary school. 1.23.

“Yeah,” Jack answered softly, never taking his eyes off Mac. “Yeah, it’s over. You can lift the lockdown. We’re steppin’ outside for a minute though. C’mon, kid.” He stood up, tugging on Mac’s arm until he followed, and lead him quickly through the hallways towards the nearest exit.

That particular door just happened to lead to the playground. Jack grinned. “Sit,” He said, nodding towards the row of swingsets.

“Seriously?” Mac looked at him in disbelief.

“Well, you look like you’re about to pass out on me any second now, and the closest bench I see is on the other side of that kickball field. I mean, I’m all for hanging out on the monkey bars but I know how well you and heights mix and that doesn’t seem like such a good idea at the moment.”

Mac nodded and sat down on one of the swings, bracing his still trembling hands against his knees as Jack dropped into the swing beside him with a clank of the metal chains.

“You okay?” He asked after a few moments had passed in silence.

“My hands won’t stop shaking,” Mac answered automatically, staring down at the offending appendages.

“That was a close one,” Jack admitted.

“Too close,” Mac corrected. “What if I couldn’t stop it in time, Jack? All those kids?”

“Hey,” Jack reached over, threading his arm between the two rows of chains separating them to place a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “You took care of it. It’s over, buddy. And nobody got hurt. Hell, nobody ‘sides us and that principal even knew anything was happening. Everything’s fine. You’re fine.”

“If I couldn’t stop it…”

“Nope,” Jack shook his head. “No way. I’m stopping you right there, pal. If you hadn’t been able to stop it then yeah, it would have been a tragedy. It really would have been. But it still wouldn’t have been your fault. Because you tried. And you’re the best there is, so if you couldn’t stop it nobody could’ve. And, sure, it might be a little morbid, but if that bomb had gone off, dude, you wouldn’t be around to deal with the aftermath anyway. Neither of us would. So you can’t go and get stuck inside that big brain of yours worryin’ about what could have happened.”

Mac sighed, kicking the toe of his boot into the sand beneath him, setting the swing slightly into motion. When he reached up to wrap his hands around the chains, though, they were steady once again. “Thanks,” he said softly after a few moments of contemplating Jack’s words.

“No problemo,” Jack shrugged, kicking out his legs and beginning to swing in earnest. “It’s part of my job. Hey, you ever flip one of these things clear around, up over the top rail? Damn, that’s fun. Teachers used to get so mad at me for doin’ that. Something about being a bad influence, I don’t know.”

Mac just smiled. Clearly Jack’s teachers had been wrong. A bit of a handful? Sure. But a bad influence? Never. At least not in Mac’s eyes.


	2. Explosion

The funny thing about smoke, Mac mused as he lay on the quickly warming cement floor beneath him, is that it triggered all the senses but hearing.

Sight was the most obvious, as it billowed upwards in dark plumes, funnel clouds of black rising from the burning red flames that were slowly engulfing the building around him. Plaster walls were crumbling, turning black from the smoke even before the flames reached them.

The scent of it was nearly overwhelming. Harsh and thick, suffocating as it burned his nose with the smell he had learned over the years to associate with failure. This one hadn’t been his fault, though, he reminded himself idly. He hadn’t even been given a chance to try to disarm it, nobody knew that the building he and Jack were sent into had been a trap.

Worse than the acrid smell, he decided, was the taste. Heavy and choking in his throat. Burning. Filling his chest, pulling his lungs tight, coating his tongue with the ash falling down around him like snow, filling him from the inside out.

He hadn’t realized that you could feel smoke, though, and that was an interesting revelation. Mac wondered why he had never noticed it before, the feeling of the dark tendrils ghosting across his skin, and decided that it was probably because he just didn’t usually take the time to pay attention. He was always attempting to escape from a fire or to work through it to solve a greater problem, never just laying there, letting its warm caress cause ironic shivers across his bare forams, despite the growing heat.

Fires were loud and explosions, like this one, were obviously even louder. Smoke, though, was silent. As he pondered the science behind that, it never crossed his mind to wonder why he couldn’t hear anything, not just the smoke. A beam from the ceiling, a huge wooden thing that would have excited any architecture fan had it not been engulfed in flames, came crashing to the ground behind him and he didn’t even notice.

There was a touch on his arm, suddenly, that left him flinching. He scrambled away, turning his head slightly, ignoring the way the flaming room seemed to tilt and spin around him, and relaxed once he saw that it was only Jack that had startled him. His partner’s face was streaked with black, ash and sweat gathering on his brow, just above panicked eyes. His lips were moving, frantically shaping words, but no sounds escaped. Silent, like the smoke.

Jack’s hands reached out again, pressing against Mac’s neck, picking up his hand and holding his wrist for a few seconds. His mouth formed around the shape of a familiar curse word before he started carefully running his hands through Mac’s hair. Wondering just how much of the black ash he had seen coating his partner’s hands was being left behind in his hair was the only worry on Mac’s mind until Jack hit a particular spot on the back of his skull and the world, which, since the explosion had become a swirling palette of reds and oranges and blacks, suddenly went white.

There were memories after that, but they were blurry and unfocused. The familiar, rhythmic rise and fall of Jack’s chest beneath his cheek as he was carried outside. The grass outside the building, an open expanse of endless green at eye level. An ambulance coming to a rushed halt, lights flashing but the sirens eerily silent.

The next time Mac wakes up he’s in a hospital, blinking up at the stark white ceiling. He assumes he’s alone since he doesn’t hear anyone else in the room with him, doesn’t hear his partner’s soothing voice coming from his bedside. But the hand that he hadn’t noticed was wrapped around his own tightens, just slightly, and he’d recognize the callouses on Jack’s gun hand anywhere.

He starts to panic when he turns to meet Jack’s eyes and finds that though his partner is obviously speaking, and he can pretty much guess the exact words after just how many times they have been in this exact situation, he can’t hear him. He can’t hear anything, as a matter of fact. Not the cart full of covered trays of hospital food he sees being wheeled down the hallway, or the heart monitor at his bedside, blinking at an ever-growing rhythm. Mac isn’t sure how long it takes his brain to slow down enough to notice that Jack’s comforting grip on his hand has shifted, that his fingers are now moving, determined and repetitive little taps on the top of his hand. It takes him even longer to recognize that the movements are actually letters, that Jack’s spelling out his name in Morse code, trying to get his attention and establish a way communicating all at once.

Jack’s shoulders sag in relief when Mac turns to him, understanding shining brightly in his eyes. “You’re okay,” He promises, taking his time to speak slower than usual, tapping out the words on Mac’s hand as he goes.

Mac reached up with his free hand, rubbing at his ear, and shot Jack a worried look, too many questions racing through his mind to ask them all through a series of dots and dashes.

_Temporary_. Jack assures. _Bomb. Hit head._

Mac nods, vaguely recalling the fire. Once the panic had dissipated slightly there was a pounding ache making itself known in the back of his head that left him wanting nothing more than to succumb to the tiredness pulling at his eyelids.

Jack, of course, saw it instantly. _Sleep. Safe. I’m here._

It was a tempting offer, a battle Mac knew he would inevitably lose so there was no point in putting up much of a fight, but he had to make sure. _You_ _good_?

Jack nodded, smiling. “I’m alright, pal.” He spoke softly, knowing that even if Mac couldn’t hear the words he would understand the sentiment beneath them. “Get some rest. I gotcha.”


	3. Delirium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't know how I made it this long without tagging this episode...

It's slow going, making their way out of the underground compound. Jack is, somehow, mostly walking on his own, with only an arm looped across Mac's shoulders for support, as they stumble their way back to exfil mostly unharmed.

Mac's blood had ran cold when he finally got into the room Jack was being held in and he caught a glimpse of the IV bag hanging above his partner's shoulder. Drugs had never been part of their plan. It wasn't one of their best to begin with, letting Jack be captured so Mac could track his way back through the terrorist's compound, but they had improvised, assuming Jack would take a few punches and walk away with some bruises and a bloody smile. Instead he stumbled, tripping over flat ground, the entire way back to the car Mac had hot wired, keeping up a constant stream of chatter, only pausing to relive some of his favorite karaoke hits. It would have been charming if it hadn't left Mac so rattled.

Jack was a rock, unflappable and as steady as they come in any dire situation, so the look of sheer panic in his eyes when Mac had found him in that room had been more than a little disconcerting. He had dozed off and on throughout the car ride, after folding himself automatically into the passenger seat, never one time questioning Mac's position behind the wheel.

Mac had hoped, after getting a little rest and downing the water bottle Mac had to keep reminding him to drink from, that the worst of the drugs would have worked themselves out of his partner's system. From his spot across from him in the plush seats of one of the Phoenix jets, it was becoming clear that they weren't going to be that lucky. Jack was asleep, technically, but it was far from peaceful. He would shift every few moments, obviously uncomfortable, and was constantly murmuring. Mac didn't try to piece together the words, knowing that Jack already felt like his privacy had been violated, or at least, he would feel that way when the drugs wore off, but from what he overheard there was a lot talk about his dad. That, combined with all the mumbles of worrying about their little makeshift family, clearly meant that his dreams were less than the peaceful, healing ones Mac was hoping for.

He jolted awake a few moments later, glassy, unfocused eyes roaming the plane cabin warily, as if he'd never seen it before. "Easy, Jack," Mac said softly, quiet voice startling him anyway. "You’re okay."

"Where 'm I?" He asked, confused. His panic dialed back a few notches once his eyes finally landed on Mac. "Mac?"

"We're on the plane," He explained, holding out a cautionary hand as he stood up to move to the seat beside his partner, hoping that his presence would provide comfort instead of even more anxiety. "On our way home, remember? You were drugged but it's okay now, I got you out."

"Thought we were in Texas," the older man admitted with a sigh, dropping his head back against the seat and rubbing a tired hand across his eyes. "I could'a swore we were."

Mac nodded. "Sorry. We're heading back to Phoenix. It's just the drugs messing with you. You'll be alright, they just have to run their course."

Jack was quiet for a few moments, long enough for Mac to almost be convinced that he had fallen asleep again, before his voice broke through the silence. "My arm hurts. I mean, my everything kinda hurts but really my arm."

Mac smiles, a sympathetic little lopsided twist of his lips. "That's probably because you were so focused on hugging me when I cut you free from those ropes that you pulled that damn needle out yourself."

"I hate needles," Jack’s unfocused eyes turned serious as they stared at Mac.

"I know you do,” Mac said, reaching out and wrapping his fingers around Jack’s wrist, feeling the erratically beating pulse there. “I know.”

“And you still owe me that hug.”

Mac smiled, quickly ducking his head so Jack, who had apparently forgotten about their hug back in the compound and all talk of it just seconds before, couldn’t see. “Sure, let’s just see if you still want me around at all after I drag your ass to medical when we land.”

“More needles?” Jack asked, clearly offended by the prospect.

“Probably, yeah,” Mac admitted. “But hopefully we won’t have to be there too long.”

“Kay,” Jack agreed with a sigh. “You know what? I really don’t like whatever it was they gave me back there. My head’s all floaty and heavy at the same time.” He waved his hands around dramatically to emphasize his point but really only managed to knock his water bottle out of the cupholder.

“Try to get some more rest,” Mac suggested, biting back another grin. “Maybe you can sleep through till we land.”

“Not a bad idea,” Jack agreed, instantly dropping his head down onto Mac’s shoulder and making himself comfortable.

Mac patted his knee and settled in for the rest of the flight.

“You scared me back there,” Jack said, voice thick with sleep, a few moments later. “Behind that door? I really thought he killed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Mac felt the guilt clawing at his stomach increase. “About all of this, man. Honestly, the thought of them drugging you never crossed my mind. I wanted it to be believable but I didn’t think about what it would look like to you.”

“It’s fine,” Jack shrugged, clearly already having forgiven Mac, if he had ever even been angry to begin with. “Just wanted you to know that I’d miss you if he had. But I don’t have to cause you’re here.”

Mac laughed, trying not to jostle his shoulder that Jack had turned into a pillow. “C’mon, Jack. it’s gonna take more than one overconfident terrorist with a handgun to take me out of the game. I learned from the best after all.” He playfully nudged Jack’s side with his elbow but the older man was already fast asleep.


	4. Human Shield

“Ouch,” Mac hissed, leaning further into the cool leather seat behind him and away from the offending antiseptic wipe in Jack’s hand. "Damn it, that hurts."

“Sorry,” Jack said, even as he continued cleaning out the sluggishly bleeding wound on Mac’s side.

“It’s fine,” Mac twisted a fist into the side of the jet’s seat and tried to keep his face impassive. “Just stings.”

“Only you would walk away with a damn bullet wound and complain about the alcohol wipe hurting,” Jack grumbled, tossing the used wipe into the small but steadily growing pile of them at his knees.

Mac rolled his eyes. “It’s a graze, Jack. Barely. I'm fine.”

“Still a bullet wound,” Jack pointed out. “And you should'a let the medics on sight take a look at it.”

“Not worth going through the hassle of filing a gunshot report.”

“You are always worth the hassle,” Jack looked up from Mac’s side, pointing a finger at him to emphasize his point. “You hear me? Always. I don’t care if they start requiring paperwork and full debriefs for a hangnail or a stubbed toe, you're worth it.”

“Well, it was my call to make. And seeing as how we technically weren’t even supposed to be in the country, the fewer people who saw us there the better.” Mac reminded his partner. “And it’s not like I went off and got shot on purpose.”

“I know, I know,” Jack sighed, wiping at his forehead with his arm since his hands were covered with bloodstained rubber gloves. “Don’t mean I have to like it, though.”

Mac nodded towards a square of neatly folded gauze in the first aid kit and pressed it against his side when Jack handed it to him. “There were armed gunmen in a public, enclosed space. You were busy taking out the bad guys, so I started getting civilians out of the line of fire. We did our job and nobody got hurt except for this,” He motioned towards his side. “Which is basically just a scratch. Call it what you want, but I’m counting that as a win.”

“Scratch from a bullet,” Jack huffed under his breath, moving Mac’s hand to gently peel back the gauze to see if the wound was still bleeding. “C’mon, man, you were practically using yourself as a human shield back there, I’m not gonna apologize for worrying when it’s over and I see you bleedin’.”

“Fair enough,” Mac agreed, knowing that Jack would never see a mission as being a success if it ended with Mac, or anyone else, getting hurt in the process. “But I really am fine. I think we can probably wrap it up now.”

Jack carefully spread a layer of antibiotic cream over the wound and taped a pressure bandage into place over it. “You sure you’re okay?” He asked once he had thrown all the used medical supplies and trash into the garbage bin. “Really?”

“I’m sure,” Mac smiled.

It was obvious that Jack didn’t quite believe him, but he sighed and dug through Mac’s duffle bag until he found a clean t-shirt. He carefully helped Mac put it on, ruffling his hair to mess it up even more instead of smoothing it down before dropping into his own seat with a grin.


	5. Gunpoint

It was Mac’s turn to pick up the beer. It wasn’t a difficult task, not by a long shot, considering how he drove past six different convenience stores on his way home from Phoenix, but leave it to him to choose to stop at the one about to be robbed at gunpoint while he was waiting in line.

He had tried to take down the man, who hadn’t even bothered to try to hide his face, as soon as he had pulled the pistol out of the waistband of his jeans and pointed it at the clerk behind the counter, but he was unarmed and the thief was faster than he looked. In the blink of an eye, he had pistol-whipped Mac hard enough that he heard his jaw snap shut as he fell to the floor. “Stay there,” the man growled, pointing the gun at Mac’s prone form, “Don’t move until I’m out of here or you and anyone else in here who wants to try to play hero will be eating lead.”

The beers, all twelve bottles, were scattered across the grey floor beside him, most of the bottles broken, their contents spilling out in a foamy golden puddle soaking into the cardboard carriers. As someone who had been threatened with a broken bottle on more than one occasion, due to his job, of course, not his extracurricular activities, Mac knew that they could make a fairly imposing weapon. It was risky, sure, but it might just give him enough of an edge to get the man apprehended until backup arrived.

Mac was pretty sure he had overheard one of the other customers, hiding somewhere down the potato chip aisle, calling 911. All he had to do was get the gun out of the unsteady hand of the thief who had been haphazardously waving it in the direction of anyone who dared to move. He waited until his attention was focused on the cashier, screaming at her to make sure she took the money out of the register along with that in the safe, before he made his move.

Ignoring the pounding in his head and the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, he went slowly, trying not to draw attention to himself, and felt an instant sense of relief wash over him when his fingers wrapped around the cold and sticky neck of one of the broken glass bottles. His relief was short-lived, however, when the man turned, focusing his gun once again on Mac.

“Didn’t I tell you not to move? What were you gonna do with that anyway?” He asked, pulling his cold eyes away from Mac’s and glaring at the broken bottle in his hand. “Put it down.”

Mac ignored him, considering drawing some inspiration from Jack and spitting a mouthful of blood at the man out of spite. He regretted not going ahead and doing it when the heel of the thief’s boot came down on his hand, hard, and Mac wasn’t sure if the cracking sound he heard came from the glass still in his hand or the breaking bones.

Either way, the pain was enough to incapacitate him for a few moments, much to the other man’s delight if his smirk was any indication. Mac drew his hand, which was already beginning to turn an impressive shade of purple, to his chest protectively and lay there for a few moments trying to catch his breath through the pain. "Maybe that will be enough to keep you down for a while," he heard the man hiss from above.

He had written Mac off, having no knowledge of how high his pain tolerance had become over the years of working through Phoenix, which Mac fully planned to use to his advantage. He got his chance a moment later when the bell over the door let out an eerily cheery ring. Not bothering to waste time checking to see who was entering the store, Mac reached out, grabbing the broken bottle once again and lunging forward, burying the sharp edges deep into the thief's calf muscle.

He screamed, reaching down to grab at his khaki covered leg, which was quickly turning red with blood, and Mac grabbed another bottle, this time unbroken. With just enough force to knock him unconscious, Mac smashed it against his temple, effectively dropping him to the ground.

Mac was checking the safety on the pistol he had picked up off the ground, struggling to do it one-handed, when a familiar hand took it from him with ease. He looked up and his eyes met Jack's.

"What… How?" He stammered in shock.

Jack just grinned as he took the clip from the gun and laid the pieces on the counter for the police to collect as evidence. "You can put that cash back where it belongs, dalrin'," he said to the cashier, giving her a reassuring nod. "It's alright now."

"Jack?" Mac tried again, as his adrenaline began to crash and he wanted answers.

"I stopped at my place to shower and still beat you to yours," he explained with a shrug, eyes narrowing as he got his first real look at Mac's injured hand. "Doesn't take that long to make a beer run. I got worried, and rightfully so it looks like. Can I take a look at that?"

Mac nodded, gingerly pulling his arm away from his chest and holding his hand out to Jack, trusting.


	6. Dragged Away

It was far from the first time he and Mac had been captured on a mission-gone-wrong. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time it had happened that year. All things considered, this time really wasn’t as bad as some of those in the past. They were given food once a day, and there was a little pump in one corner of the cell that they could draw water from. There was even a window, albeit, too high up to reach even with Mac standing on his shoulders, not that either of them could fit through it to escape anyway, but it made things a little bit more bearable, being able to keep track of time, to watch the sun make it’s trek across the sky each day, knowing that rescue was another twelve hours closer.

And help was coming, Jack knew that. Thornton and Nikki had been watching them from the safety of DXS's headquarters and they would have noticed as soon as their comms went offline. The cavalry was on its way, or would be as soon as they tracked down their location, they just had to hang on until then.

He sighed, wincing at the aching pull on his broken ribs from the movement, and scanned the room for what had to be the millionth time, searching for something, anything, they could use to make their escape. It was a futile attempt, he knew before he even began. If Mac hadn’t been able to come up with a way out in their first few days locked up, there was no way Jack would find something now, but he was growing antsy, desperate. He had stayed awake all night, keeping watch while Mac slept despite the way the rough-hewn walls were digging into his severely bruised and beaten side, hopeful that rescue would come before the dawn. It hadn’t, and the sun rose on Jack’s turn.

Technically, he knew, that was the wrong way to think of it. The day before, when their captors had pulled him from the cell and thrown him to the floor in an empty room down the hall and spent hours beating him, throwing punches and kicking with steel-toed boots, trying to break him into revealing who they worked for but only succeeding in breaking every rib on his left side instead, that had been his turn. It didn’t feel like it though, because despite his pain he knew it meant that they would be coming for Mac next and no matter what they did to him, that was infinitely worse.

In all the captive scenarios they had been through in the past, the bad guys had always played by the same rule book, though the games had differed. It was obvious that Mac and Jack’s friendship ran far deeper than just a working partnership, and that was always used against them. Jack had always thought there was nothing worse than being trapped in those seemingly endless moments when he was forced to watch Mac being tortured. It was equally as hard on Mac, he knew, when the roles were reversed.

This time, though, this particular villain of the week, had stumbled onto something that Jack himself had never discovered: Not being there was worse.

Each morning a group of heavily armed guards would come into their cell and take one of them for questioning, leaving the other alone with nothing but his worries and thoughts. Sitting there all day, knowing that Mac was being hurt, imagining different scenarios, each one more demented than the last, without ever getting to see or hear him, was worse than having a front-row seat to the action. He’d gladly take each of Mac’s days if they would let him, no physical pain could be worse than the mental suffering he went through each time he was left in that room alone. As if summoned by his thoughts, he heard the door at the end of the hallway slam open and a legion of bootsteps making their way to them. 

Mac jolted awake at the sound, blinking away sleep as awareness quickly took over and he sat up, instinctually scooting closer to Jack. He turned and coughed into his shoulder and Jack could hear the rattling in his chest, leftover from the waterboarding two days ago, and Jack sent up a prayer to whoever was listening for it to be DXS agents opening their cell door. 

It wasn’t.

Just like last time, and each time before that, they put up a decent fight. Considering the injuries each of them had taken on over the past few days, they held their own. Still, it was no match for the eight healthy, uninjured men sent to retrieve their prisoner and, like always, one of them pulled out a cattle prod. Mac had explained, one night after they had been reunited but were both too shaken up and hurting to sleep, that he thought it had been altered, that the control settings must have tampered with so it could produce a higher electrical charge. All Jack knew was that it hurt like hell, burning through his neck and lighting every nerve ending in his body on fire, muscles spasming until he dropped to the floor unable to move, unable to do anything other than watch as Mac was dragged away. And that hurt more than any physical pain ever could.

Mac kept fighting. It took two guards, one wrapped around each arm, to pull him from the cell, and his bare feet kicked out at anything he could reach, all the while hissing out curse words that Jack would have been proud of had the situation been any less dire, until he was out of Jack’s line of sight and the final guard exited the room, pulling the door shut behind him with a metallic clang. Just down the hall, he heard Mac scream out his name.


	7. Isolation

Mac let his head drop back against the hospital hallway with a thump, only to lift it up just to drop it back again focusing on the dull, repetitive sound as he stared at the window in front of him, vision obscured by the closed blinds. He knew it was hospital protocol, understood their rules, and he knew he would have appreciated the privacy, had it been himself quarantined in the isolation room instead of his partner. The only contact he had been allowed to have though, was his view through those windows. The blinds were usually left open, for that very reason, other than the two times a day a team of doctors and nursing staff put on their containment suits and braved the highly contagious virus Jack had been exposed to. 

Now was one of those times, and Mac, who was fidgety on a good day, was running on adrenaline and caffeine and the beige blinds currently obstructing his view of his partner were making him even more anxious. It was bad enough that he wasn’t allowed in the room himself, though he had tried to convince every single member of the hospital staff to let him in, not having visual confirmation that Jack was okay was unsettling. And calling his condition ‘okay’ was being generous. 

They had known there was a chance they had been contaminated. When Matty sent them to retrieve a computer full of files from a private-practicing doctor’s lab, a doctor rumored to have been experimenting with creating new immune-resistant viruses, they had known it was going to be risky. They thought they were in the clear, that they had both escaped without being exposed to anything, until Jack collapsed suddenly, hours into their flight home, unconscious and with a raging fever, and hadn’t woken up since. 

That had been four days ago. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the blinds were pulled open and Mac rushed across the hall, pressing his forehead to the cool glass as he peered through. Same room, same humming machines and beeping monitors, same partner tossing and turning, just slightly, with frown lines etched deep into his skin, alerting the rest of the world, not just Mac, of his discomfort. If he craned his neck at just the right angle, he could see movement in the tiny little decon room separating Jack’s from the hallway, the medical team preparing to exit. 

“How is he?” Mac asked as soon as the door was opened. The attending doctor, a tall man with a goatee and plastic blue-framed glasses. Mac couldn’t remember his name, though he knew it at some point before the days and nights spent in the hospital hallway had entirely blended together into a neverending blur. He ran his hands through his hair with a sigh before stepping away from the crowd of nurses and specialists and walked over to Mac. 

“Still no change.” 

Mac’s shoulders slumped, defeated. 

“Which is better than a turn for the worse,” The doctor reminded him gently, stepping closer to rest a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “I just wish I could tell you that he’s resting comfortably.”

“He’s not,” Mac turned to look back at his partner, shaking his head. “He’s hurting.” 

“Not physically, I don’t think,” He pulled back his hand to reach beneath his glasses and rub at his eyes. “He’s on medication to keep his pain under control and his fever, while still elevated, is safely below danger levels. I’m starting to wonder if his discomfort is mental.” 

“Nightmares,” Mac agreed, kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. “It’s because he’s alone in there. You need to let me in.”

“I can’t do that, Mac. The virus is contagious as long as his fever is over a hundred. You know the risk.” 

“I don’t care,” Mac stepped away to go back to his window, watching Jack’s head loll, protesting, against the pillowcase. “I can fix it.” 

“Give us time to get his fever down. It’s dropping, slowly, but it is dropping.” A hand patting his back, an attempt at comfort. “I’m confident he’s going to pull through this.” 

Mac was still standing there, hours later, when Riley showed up with two to-go cups of coffee from the shop down the street. “Nothing new?” She asked as she handed him his cup and got her own slatted glance at Jack through the blinds. 

Mac took a drink of the coffee, grateful to have something to do with his hands even if the caffeine would make him even more jittery and on-edge. “They say the fever’s going down, which is a good sign, but he’s miserable, trapped in some nightmare from hell, and I can’t help.” 

“And you know this because…?” 

“Look at him,” Mac motioned towards Jack’s room with his coffee cup. “You can tell. And I could help if they would just let me in there.” 

“Okay,” Riley said softly, taking Mac’s free hand and pulling him away from the window and towards the little row of waiting room chairs further down the hall, unsure of this particular side of Mac and slightly concerned that his hatred for the window separating him and his partner was going to manifest in him driving his fist clear through the paneled glass. “Talk. What’s going on?” 

“He’s alone in there,” Mac began before cutting himself off. “I know you don’t see much of it, but Jack’s got some pretty bad PTSD. It doesn’t flare up often, but when it does it can hit him pretty hard.” 

“Like when he’s sick with some crazy virus and running a fever?” Riley asked, catching on quickly. 

Mac nodded. “And I’m always there, you know? Just like he is for me. But I can’t be in there with him this time and I think it’s bringing some pretty bad memories back to the surface.” 

“Like?” Riley pressed on, determined. 

Mac wasn’t going to tell her. But he decided that if Jack had to relive that mission, that horrible week-long op that had left them spending their days separated, imaginations running wild wondering just what torture their partner was being forced to endure, then it was only fair that he had to remember it too. So he told her everything, or at least as much as he could without causing her to have her own nightmares. 

“And you think he’s stuck reliving that op?” Riley asked when he was through talking. 

Mac nodded, draining the last of his coffee. “It’s the only thing I can think of. And my brain is, I don’t know, hardwired to fix this stuff and I’ve spent the past four days thinking there was nothing I could do help him. But there is. I can fix this, I can bring him out of it. But they won’t let me.” 

“For your own safety,” Riley said softly, reaching out and wrapping her hands around his again. “Do you know how furious Jack would be when he woke up from all this if I had to tell him you had gone and gotten yourself sick helping him? It would be World War Three up in this place. Not to mention how he would probably send himself into a relapse being stupid and going to take care of you when he shouldn’t even be out of bed yet.” 

Mac smiled. 

“Do you really wanna leave me to deal with all that?” She teased. “No? Then you just have to hang in there. He’s strong. He can pull through this.” 

Mac found himself wishing he could borrow some of that strength two days later when he found himself finally allowed in Jack’s room. He looked around, suddenly unsure what he was supposed to do with all the machines still monitoring Jack’s vitals and his normally larger than life partner who was unnaturally quiet, still unconscious in the stark white hospital sheets. He was quickly developing a newfound respect for the ease Jack always had about him in these situations. 

There wasn’t even a chair in the room, it clearly hadn’t been designed for visitors, so Mac sat down carefully on the bed. “Hey, big guy,” His voice was soft as he picked up Jack’s hand, mindful of the wires and tubes. “It’s okay now. I’m here.”


	8. Stab Wound

While they never agreed on the perfect case, fixers were at the top of each of their lists of least favorite jobs. The people hired to clean up other’s messes, much like their own little ragtag team just not at all legal, were always a scarily dangerous combination of lethal and intelligent. The latest one Matty had sent them after, a scrawny, greasy, mouse of a man named Walters, had a penchant for playing games.

“All you have to do is win,” he promised in a singsong voice. “Just win one little game and I’ll turn myself over to your secretive little Phoenix Organization willingly.”

“Or we could just take you in now,” Mac rolled his eyes. It hadn’t been easy, tracking down the, honestly very unintimidating, stick of a man in front of them and the last thing he wanted to do was end up partaking in whatever sick version of a game his mind had cooked up.

“You could,” He agreed with a shrug. “But remember, we’re in my house. My fortress, if you will. And in my line of work, you expect for this day to come. There are safeguards all throughout this place, four in this very room alone, in fact, that can end my life, take me off the board for good. And you’ve already made the mistake of letting me know that your boss wants me brought in alive. I’ll be dead before you can stop me unless you agree to a game.”

Jack moved slightly, hand hovering over the cool steel of the pistol strapped securely onto his thigh harness. “What game?” He asked, good-naturedly, voice friendly, drawing all the attention to himself to give Mac a chance to scan the room, to create a plan.

“Part of the game is that you can’t know the rules until you say yes, silly!” Walters grinned.

“You know, I can shoot out both your kneecaps before you even move an inch,” Jack assured. “You really wanna risk it over some stupid game?”

“Games are never stupid,” He hissed, eyes narrowing in a demented glare that left Mac worrying, not for the first time since reading Walter’s file on the plane ride over, about the stability of his mental state. “And who's to say I don’t already have a failsafe on me? Play the game, win, and walk me into the office like one of your prized goats from the 4-H Club county fair I have no doubt that you participated in as a child Agent, or you let me die and report back to your boss a failure. Doesn’t matter if it’s death by your bullet or my own devices, it will be your fault either way.”

Mac was gnawing on the inside of his cheek, looking for another way, a loophole in the man’s logic but he couldn’t find one. Finally, he met Jack’s eyes and gave a barely visible shake of his head. Walters had too much valuable information that Matty needed. With his cooperation, voluntary or not, Phoenix could take a lot of bad people out. “We’ll play.”

“Oh, goody,” Walter’s clapped his hands together in childlike glee. “I was hoping you would say that.”

Jack sighed, lifting his hand away from his weapon to cross his arms, hoping the squirrely little man in front of him didn’t realize that he had another piece easily accessible inside his jacket. “Wanna tell us the rules now?”

“Of course. Everyone has to know the rules before we begin, that’s only fair.” He walked over to the sideboard, an antique-looking monster of a piece of furniture that matched the dining room table separating him from Mac and Jack, and picked up a gold-leafed box.

Reverently setting it down on the table, Walters smiled. “Operating under the impression that you may just shoot me with that gun beside your left elbow, I’ll let one of you take out the pieces.”

Jack went to open the box but Mac quickly stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Let me. In case it’s wired.”

Jack took a step back and watched as Mac carefully examined the box before taking a steadying breath and popping open the lid.

“Now just what exactly do you think we’re gonna do with that?” Jack asked when he saw the dagger lying on a cushioned bed of blue velvet. It was beautiful, with an intricately carved gold handle and a wicked sharp blade that shone menacingly in the light from the chandelier above the table.

“The rules of the game are quite simple, Agent Dalton,” Walters shrugged. “To win the game, someone must end up being stabbed with that pretty little blade. It doesn’t matter who, and it doesn’t matter where it goes, so long as it ends up in actual flesh.”

Jack scoffed, ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut. “Well, Mac’s already got a knife of his own. And we know I’m armed. I guess that leaves you being the only one of us here without a weapon so I nominate you.”

“Sure,” He agreed. “That is one way this game can play out. Of course, if you choose to make it a nonfatal blow I’ll just take my own life. If that’s how you want this to end you’d be better off just using a bullet. No sense in staining a perfectly good knife if you’re not going to follow the rules.” 

“You’re crazy,” Mac shook his head. “Nobody’s stabbing anyone.”

“But that’s the game,” Walters reminded him. “You agreed to play. And I for one, am very curious to see how this pans out. I have a feeling you’re tougher than you look, MacGyver. You can handle it. The real question here is if Jack can stand driving that knife into his boy. If that’s something he can live with the repercussions of.”

“I ain’t stabbing him,” Jack quickly interjected. “So we’ll never have to find out.”

“Well clearly he isn’t going to stab you,” Walters laughed at the idea. “He won’t even carry a gun for his own protection. If you two need to take a moment to discuss the logistics of your plan, please, go right ahead.”

“Whose to say that once one of us has that knife stickin’ in us you won’t’ just end it all anyway?” Jack asked.

“Because that would be cheating,” Walters looked at him, his eyes making it clear that the idea had never once crossed his mind. “And cheating isn’t fair.

“So long as that knife gets put in one of us, you turn yourself over,” Jack clarified. Mac could see an idea forming behind his partner’s eyes, a plan taking shape, but he had no clue how Jack was finding a way out of this one. “Doesn’t matter who ends up bleeding, doesn’t matter who puts it there?”

Walters sighed. “You really do ask a lot of questions about a very simple game.”

“Then let’s play,” Jack agreed. In a flash of movement, he reached out and grabbed ahold of the dagger. Before Mac had been given a chance to process the move, Jack had locked eyes with Walters and, while somehow keeping his face entirely impassive, drove the dagger hilt deep into the side of his own thigh.

“Jack, what the hell?” Mac screeched, though his voice was nearly drowned out by Walters’s exciting clapping.

“Zip ties in my pocket,” Jack said calmly, voice tight, instead of an explanation. “Get his hands.”

“Well played, Agent Dalton.” Walters praised, walking forward and holding out his hands, much to Mac’s surprised eyes. “I agreed to turn myself over if you played the game,” he explained. “And you won. You followed the rules, it wouldn’t be fair for me not to.”

“Jack?” Mac turned once again to his partner, concerned.

“I’m fine kid,” Jack assured, though the quickly darkening stain spilling down the side of his leg said otherwise. “Take care of him and then you can worry about me.”

Mac had never been good at following orders, but he did just that, making sure Walters’s hands were securely fastened behind his back with the zip ties that were, as promised, in Jack’s pocket. He wrapped a thick layer of duct tape around them for extra precaution, along with a piece over his mouth, before setting him down in the corner of the dining room.

“What were you thinking?” He asked when his attention was finally turned to Jack. He quickly pulled out one of the heavily cushioned dining room chairs from beneath the table and helped Jack lower himself into it. "Don't move. Don't touch that either. I'll call for a medevac, you're not walking out of here on that leg." 

“It was the quickest way outta here, and Matty needed him alive,” Jack said, leaning heavily against the side of the chair. “I’ll be alright. Honestly?” He shrugged and managed a smile, despite the pain. “It’s a cool knife, Mac. And now I get to keep it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is my favorite so far. I'm not big on creating OC's, I like to try to keep everything canon to the original show, but Walters was super fun to write. I may just have to bring him back for a full-length fic when Whumptober is over if anyone's interested.


	9. Shackled

Cuffs.

That’s what the men had called them, when they dragged Mac and Jack into the dimly lit room and tied them to the chairs in the middle of the floor, by the wrists and ankles. They had strategically put them back to back, so they couldn’t see each other and removed anything that could possibly be used as a weapon or a lockpick.

Their captors this time were smart, methodical and cautious, but Mac was left seriously considering their intelligence when he heard the men refer to the heavy iron shackles keeping him and his partner contained as mere cuffs. Cuffs were escapable, and these were not, at least not that Mac had discovered. Thick and solid, each weighed at least ten pounds and while there was a latch on each one that could be easily picked, Mac didn’t have any tools within his reach. A fact that his partner seemed to have forgotten as he was continuously reminding Mac of just how dire their current entanglement was and how his role in their little duo was to be the one to come up with a way out of the dangerous situations their jobs put them in.

“C’mon, Mac,” Jack called again. “Figure somethin’ out and get us out of here.”

“I’m working on it,” Mac winced as one of the heavy metal chains connecting his wrists clanked against the back of his chair. “There’s a paperclip in my back pocket, they were too worried about taking my knife to notice it. I just can’t… reach it.”

“Well if you could think of something real quick, that’d be great.” Jack continued, futilely trying to rock his chair and loosen the bolts securing it to the cement floor. “They aren’t gonna leave us in here forever, they'll come back and start asking questions at some point.”

“I’m trying,” Mac grit out through his teeth. “Give me a minute.”

“Sure hope we have a minute,” Jack muttered, his voice drowning out Mac’s sharp, pained, intake of breath as he managed to slip a hand free from the band around his wrist and into his pocket, grabbing the little loop of steel there.

After a few moments of struggling, he finally had it pulled flat enough to use to fit into the lock and he had both wrists free. He made quick work of the matching set of bands around his ankles and moved on to free Jack, dropping each heavy piece of metal to the floor with a clang that sent dust flying.

"You good?" Jack asked as he watched Mac's fingers fumble with his makeshift lockpick.

Mac just nodded and once they were both free, moved on to picking the lock on the door. Jack's relief at being free, at least enough to fight back should the situation call for it, was short lived as he quickly noticed the continued disjointed, out of character lack of grace to Mac’s movements. “What’s wrong?” He asked, rubbing at the bruises circling his own wrists from pulling at the shackles as he walked over to his partner. “You hurt? Thought you said you were okay?”

“I’m fine, Jack,” Mac assured, looking over his shoulder to meet Jack's eyes and running a hand through his hair as he kept his back turned away from his partner and kept working on the door. “Let’s just get outta here.”

“Oh, no,” Jack stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, turning him back around. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere till you tell me what’s wrong. And before you try it again, no, you’re not fine. That’s not your _Everything’s fine, Jack face_. That’s your _Jack, something’s wrong but I don’t wanna tell you because my lifetime of abandonment issues makes me think that I’m a burden face_. Which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from my least favorite _Jack, it hurts, please fix it_ face. So start talking.”

Mac forced a frown to bite back a smile before shaking his head at just how well Jack knew him and holding out his hand. “How about a _Yeah it hurts, but it’s no big deal and had to be done face_?” He teased, hoping to soften the rush of guilt he knew his partner would be feeling once he realized what was wrong. “Or a _Jack’s gonna go all annoying and overprotective when he sees this even though there’s nothing he can do about it so I might as well not mention it yet_ one?”

He saw the instant Jack realized what was wrong, how his eyes darkened and he began to blink slower. He reached up to scratch at his chin, never looking away from Mac’s outreached hand. “No wonder it was taking you so long,” Jack said finally, voice flat. “You were workin’ up the nerve to break your own hand.”

“Dislocate,” Mac quickly corrected, “And it’s just my thumb. Took a few tries to get the angle right to pop it out one-handed, nerve had nothing to do with it.”

“Mac, buddy, I’m so s…”

“Don’t even go there,” Mac cut him off. “That’s exactly why I didn’t want you to know till we got out of here. I’m okay, or at least I will be after a quick stop in medical, it’s no big deal.”

"That is so damn far from okay, bud," Jack sighed, shaking his head. "Here, give me that." He held out his hand for the improvised lockpick.

Knowing that protesting would only result in an argument he would lose, Mac handed it over willingly.

"I was over there complainin' about how slow you were going and you were busy breaking your own hand to get us out." Jack continued berating himself as he knelt in front of the door, carefully folding the little wire in his hands in half to release the lock's tumbler system.

"Dislocated," Mac corrected again, what he was sure wouldn't be the last time. “And it’s alright.”

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Jack said softly, even more guilt piling up behind his brown eyes. “I can’t risk screwing up your hands, Mac. I can't.”

“And I’m not asking you to,” Mac assured. “Let’s just get out of here, grab an icepack for the ride home, and I’ll be alright till we land.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive,” Mac nodded. “Now do you know what you’re doing with that lock or do you want to let the person with only one fully functioning hand do it?”

Seconds later the door swung open as Jack tossed a smirk over his shoulder towards Mac. “C’mon, kid,” He said, standing up and checking to make sure the hallway was empty before they made their escape. “Let’s go. I’ve got a self-sacrificing idiot of a genius with a broken hand to get patched up.”

Mac just rolled his eyes, automatically following his partner through the dark corridor. “Dislocated, Jack.”


	10. Unconscious

When Mac wakes up he’s back in Mexico. Chest aching, head pounding, vision swimming, El Noche holding a mask of cold, toxic air to his face, Mexico. He slams his eyes closed again and uses the last of his flagging energy reserve to fight back, struggling against the hands restraining him. He doesn’t even realize how familiar those hands are until the voice that matches them filters in through the droning hum in his ears. “Easy, Mac. You’re not there. C’mon, kid, wake the rest of the way up and stop fightin’ me.”

Jack.

He pries open his eyes, momentarily blinded by the bright lights surrounding him until things come into focus and found himself in the back of an ambulance rather than a sprawling Mexican villa.

“There’s them baby blues,” Jack smiles down at him. “You back with me now? You’re not gonna come out swinging again if I let go of your wrists are ya?”

Mac stared at him, willing his pounding heart to slow down until Jack’s questions finally registered and he slowly shook his head. If Jack was there he had no need to fight. As long as he stayed.

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere,” Jack assured, reading the anxiety coming off Mac in waves and reaching up to card a hand through Mac’s hair, brushing blonde strands back off his forehead. “We’re in the back of a moving vehicle, anyway. Not like I could get very far even if I wanted to.”

Mac reached up to take the plastic mask away from his face but Jack quickly intercepted his hand.

"Easy, now. Thought you said I didn't need to keep your arms down?" Jack teased, laying Mac's hand back down at his side but keeping a light grip on his wrist. "You gotta keep that on, bud. I'm no expert but these guys are," He nodded his head towards the pair of medics bustling about the small space around them. "And they got you hooked up to all these nifty monitors and I know enough to know some of those numbers are way lower than they're supposed to be."

“Happened?” Mac asked, the single word fogging up his oxygen mask.

"What happened," Jack explained as he resumed running a hand through Mac's hair, biting back a smile at how easily Mac leaned into his hand. "Is you went off and thought it would be a good idea to get locked in a bank vault and inadvertently triggered the fire suppression system."

"Oh," Mac said. He had no memories of that but it did sound like something he would do.

"Oh," Jack repeated. "That's all your gonna say to that? You locked yourself in a sealed off room with all the oxygen being siphoned out of it and all you have to say is oh?"

"Sorry?" Mac tried again.

Jack couldn’t help but smile. "Would it do any good if I asked you not to ever do that to me again? You were out cold when they finally got that door open and I got to ya. You gotta stop pulling stunts like that on me, man. At least make sure I’m locked in there with you!"

Mac was slowly regaining his strength, he had enough energy to reach a trembling hand up and pull the mask away from his face to speak unhindered. "Didn't do it on purpose." He croaked out, voice hoarse. "But for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

“Yeah, I know you are.” Jack assured. “Still scared me though.”

“We good?” Mac asked around a yawn. “Can I go back to sleep?"

Jack turned questioning eyes towards the paramedics, who nodded, and Mac was unconscious again before Jack even got done readjusting the oxygen mask over his partner's face.


	11. Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter resulted in me finally realizing that it would be so much easier to write all these whump fics for the same fandom if I had a constant set of OC medical staff I could fall back on using instead of nameless and faceless doctors and nurses never to be heard from again. I'd considered it but kept putting it off until now. I hope nobody hates her too much, she'll probably show up again before this month is over.

Mac has his head pillowed on his folded forearms to keep his cheek from rustling against the thin paper covering the exam table he’s laying on. A draft from the air conditioning vent ghosts across his bare back and he shivers.

“You hurting or just cold?” Jack asks, and Mac turns his head just enough to look up at his partner standing guard at his shoulder, arms crossed, protective. He’d been there since the moment the on-shift nurse had picked up the lidocaine syringe.

“Just a chill,” Mac assured. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, well if they’d keep it warmer than an ice chest in here we wouldn’t have that problem,” Jack grumbled just loud enough for the nurse on the other side of the exam table to roll her eyes, not bothering to look up at him.

Laura, Lucy, whatever her name was, was newer to Phoenix, young, with insanely bright green eyes, and was a natural at her job. She had a no-nonsense attitude and was, from what Jack had gathered over the few times she had patched them up already, firmly against coddling her patients. Jack appreciated that trait in his medical professionals, but when he was stuck watching, without a scratch on him, as Mac fell victim to the needle-happy staff at Phoenix Med, he always found himself wishing for a little extra helping of positive bedside manner. When Leah-Luna-Lacy was on shift it always left plenty of room for Jack to step up his game in that department.

“Trust me, Jack,” she smirked. “You’d be complaining more if we kept it too hot in here. If you’re cold you can always put on more clothes. There’s only so many you can take off in polite company before it starts getting awkward.”

“Well, excuse me, but the lady about to stab my friend here with all those shiny pointy things isn’t exactly my definition of polite company,” Jack nodded towards the tray of medical supplies she was preparing.

“Ignore him, Laurel,” Mac laughed. “It’d be kinda difficult to expect you to sew up this gash on my shoulderblade through layers of fabric.”

_Laurel_, Jack ran the name over again in his mind. _Leave it to Mac to remember that. Probably could tell you where she did her residency and the name of her dog too._ Out loud, he said, “Bud, the least she could do is let you keep your shirt or somethin’ on till she’s ready to fix you up.”

“I’m ready whenever you are, Mac,” Laurel announced. “Wanna get this over with so you can get out of here?”

“Absolutely,” Mac agreed, shifting a bit, rolling his shoulders in the process and wincing as the movement pulled at the cut on his back.

Jack noticed. “He’s still feelin’ it. Maybe we should wait a few more minutes?”

“It’s deep, Jack,” Mac said, not bothering to look up. “I’m gonna feel it no matter how much she numbs it or how long we wait.”

“Yeah, alright,” Jack sighed, running a hand through his short hair in frustration. Mac didn’t notice him stepping away for a moment and commandeering one of the rolling stools tucked beneath the little desk in the corner of the room until he was seated, at eye level with Mac, at the head of the exam table and had wrapped each of his hands around the tops of Mac’s shoulders.

“Umm, hi?” Mac raised his eyebrows in confusion.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jack smirked. “As many times as I’ve been the one who has to sew you back together you think I’ve forgotten how squirmy you can get? Someone’s gotta keep you from rippin’ that needle clear outta place and making that cut any worse than it already is.”

Mac reburied his face in his arms and didn’t bother with moving Jack’s hands. “Not squirmy,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, dude,” Jack argued with a chuckle. “You are. But if you wanna fight ‘bout it squirmy was just me being nice. The real bad ones? Or the ones like this, that you’re left feeling? You get downright jumpy.”

Laurel looked over at Jack, head tilted to the side, curved needle already threaded and dangling from her blue-gloved hand. “That’s big talk coming from you Jack. The man who, if I’m remembering correctly, nearly passed out the first time I met him. From a flu shot.”

Mac laughed.

“Hey now, I didn’t pass out,” Jack reminded them. “And it’s a well-known fact that I don’t like needles. Even less when I don’t know the person about to stab me with ‘em. Mac here’s the hypocrite. He pretends to be all tough, acts like they don’t bother him, but you watch and see, he’ll be jumpin’ clear off this table in a second.”

And while he didn’t come close to jumping off the table, as Jack had predicted, it was a good thing Jack’s hands were there, keeping Mac still, as Laurel started the first stitch and his entire body flinched at the sensation. “Easy,” Jack soothed, pitching his voice low, all traces of his earlier teasing long gone. Laurel looked to him, eyebrows raised, questioning, and Jack nodded for her to keep going. “You’re alright.”

“Doesn’t hurt,” Mac mumbled into his folded arms. “I mean, it does,” Another stitch in and he was jolting upwards into Jack’s hands again. “But that’s not what gets me. It just feels weird. Tugging, from the inside out.” The next flinch wasn’t as harsh. “I’ll get used to it after a minute.”

“You’re doin’ just fine,” Jack said as his thumbs dragged slowly across the tops of Mac’s shoulders, and before the large gash was even halfway closed up Mac was relaxed enough that Jack loosened his grip, keeping just one hand secured at the base of his neck. A steady, reassuring touchstone, there if Mac needed it to fall back on; a tiny physical representation of Jack’s entire presence in Mac’s life.


	12. "Don't Move"

“Don’t move,” Mac said, for what felt like the twentieth time in the past few minutes.

“I ain’t movin,” Jack grumbled, shaking his hand even as he spoke the contradictory words, flapping it around as if it had fallen asleep.

“Yes,” Mac reached out, grabbing hold of Jack’s fingers and pulling his arm still. “You are. Stop it.”

“It burns,” Jack whined, trying halfheartedly to pull his hand free of Mac’s grip.

“I’m sure it does,” Mac agreed easily. “But seeing as how I’ve watched you ‘walk off’ multiple bullet wounds over the course of our friendship, I think you can manage to push through it. Can we keep going? There are less than two miles till exfil and I’d rather not be stuck hiking through the jungle in the dark if we can avoid it.” He looked up at the thick canopy of leaves high above him, still in slight awe that he got to explore places like that and call it a job.

“Yeah,” Jack sighed and yanked his hand out of Mac’s, reaching out to poke at the raised, slightly pink, line running across his palm. “How long till this stuff dries, anyway?”

“It’s probably already set,” Mac answered automatically. “But it takes up to an hour to dry completely.” His head whipped around as he looked back over his shoulder. “Don’t touch it either!”

“So bossy,” Jack mumbled as he pushed past Mac to take the lead, fighting back thick foliage with his good hand. “This is all your fault anyway.” 

“It’s my fault you sliced your hand open? With your own knife?” Mac asked. “Or it’s my fault that cut is hurting because I just happened to pack a tube of superglue and could fix it even though we’re miles away from any medical help?”

Jack paused, running both options over in his mind before answering. “Both.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to elaborate on all that if you’re expecting me to follow it,” Mac laughed.

“If you hadn’t stolen my knife sheath to make one of your little thingys none of this would have happened in the first place!”

“If by thingy you mean the catapult device I made to send our transmitter over the tree canopy so exfil could get our location and know which drop point to pick us up at, then sure, I guess that was my fault.” Mac rolled his eyes as he climbed over a fallen log in their path. “Just be glad that Matty planned for us to be without cell reception and sent us down here with a transmitter in the first place. And I don’t remember telling you to just throw an unsheathed knife into your pack. That one was all you, man.”

Jack’s only response was to continue attacking the branches in his way with one-handed fervor.

“And as for the superglue,” Mac continued with a grin, “Excuse me for assuming that your, to put it nicely, mildly-hypochondriacal ass would rather deal with the slight discomfort of a fairly safe, though not exactly medically approved, precaution than catch a literal tropical disease from running around the rainforest with an open wound on your hand."

"And that’s not mentioning all the predators that are native to this area who would be attracted by the scent of blood.” Mac kept going. “It really will be getting dark soon, and we’ve managed to work this job as long as we have without getting mauled by a wildcat in the jungle. Personally, I’d like to keep that our of our medical files for as long as possible.”

Mac watched as Jack’s shoulders slumped slightly at the validity of his argument. He turned around, shaking his injured hand, just slightly, and clearly out of spite, in Mac’s direction. “Still burns.”


	13. Adrenaline

“Alright, alright,” Jack panted, slowing to a walk and ducking into an alleyway between a coffee shop and a book store, both closed for the night. “I think we outran ‘em.”

“The knife-wielding psychos that crashed what was supposed to be an easy job?” Mac asked as he leaned heavily against one of the cool brick walls that lined the small town square. “I sure hope so.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Jack’s eyes roamed over Mac in the dim light filtering in through the darkness from the streetlight a few yards away. “They jumped us out of nowhere.”

“I’m good,” Mac assured. “They just didn’t want us to get our hands on this,” He patted his jacket pocket where a tiny flash drive, the source of their latest string of problems, was tucked away safely.

“Well, I’m not seein’ any sign of them,” Jack said, carefully poking his head out from the protection of the alley, searching the empty streets and closed storefronts. “Ready to make another run for it?”

Mac nodded, pushing off from the wall and chalking the slight tremble in his legs up to exhaustion. “Race you to the car, old man!” He called over his shoulder as he jogged out into the yellow streetlight.

Neither of them noticed the splash of darkness left behind on the bricks where Mac had been leaning.

“How’d I beat you, kid?” Jack asked, pulling the keys to the sleek black Phoenix-issued sedan out of his pocket a little over a mile later. “You slacking up on the cardio or somethin’?”

Mac forced a smile and tried to hide just how hard he was breathing after the run, which shouldn’t have been enough to even leave him winded. “Maybe I let you win. Ever think of that?”

“You ever think that maybe I’ve been the one letting you win all these years?” Jack teased back as he unlocked the doors and they folded themselves into the dark leather seats.

“Can honestly say it’s never crossed my mind. Not even once.”

Jack just grinned as he pulled the car onto the road one-handed, dialing Matty’s number with the other. “Matty!” He greeted when she answered his call. “How’s my favorite boss lady?”

“What kind of mess do you need me to bail you out of this time, Dalton?” She asked with a sigh.

“None,” Jack smirked into the phone. “It was a little touch and go for a minute there when the goons you assured us were out of the country showed up and jumped us, but we handled it.”

“And the drive?”

“Mac’s got it,” Jack answered, shooting a quick glance over to his partner in the passenger seat. “Right, Mac?”

“Yeah,” Mac assured, reaching into the pocket of his jacket. “Yeah, it’s right…” His voice trailed off as he pulled out the tiny device and his hand came away red.

Jack spared another, longer look across the car, worried that Mac’s silence was an indication that the flash drive had gotten lost somewhere in their hurried escape. What he found instead was even worse.

“Scratch that, Matty,” Jack’s voice rose slightly, worried, as he whipped the car around and started backtracking towards the town they had just left at nearly twice their original speed. “We’re gonna miss exfil. Rerouting to the nearest hospital. Do your thing. Mac, talk to me, pal.”

“I… I don’t think it’s too bad,” Mac pulled up his layers of shirts, staring in surprise at the knife wound curling up from his hip. “Not that deep.”

“It’s a damn stab wound, Mac!” Jac slammed the hand he still had on the wheel down hard against the leather. “Why didn’t you say something? I even asked!”

“Didn’t notice,” Mac carefully set the bloody flash drive on the console. “Adrenaline, I guess. I’m fine.”

“You’re gettin’ checked out,” The heat in Jack’s voice left no room for argument.

Mac nodded, pressing a shaky hand across the cut in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. Through the phone, he heard Matty sigh, “I’ll take care of things, the ER will be expecting you.”

“We’ll keep you updated,” Jack said as he disconnected the call, throwing the phone down beside the drive on the console and pressing the gas pedal down even further. “Easy mission my ass.”


	14. Tear Stained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the longest so far, I almost kept it to post as a separate fic but I couldn't wait to share it with y'all. 
> 
> This one is a little darker than most have been, just a heads up, but I don't think it's any creepier than canon would allow. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Mac was never allowed to travel alone again, Jack decided. He didn’t care how boring the week-long guest lecturing position Frankie had called Mac out to MIT for was, he would be there, front row for every class. He would fight Matty tooth and nail to be on that plane alongside his partner, even if he didn’t exactly fit the mold to pass for a think tank worker to easily keep their cover. He didn’t think she would argue too much though, not after the harrowing hours they had all spent piled into the war room, searching for any clue to bring their boy home.

The real problem wasn’t that Mac was incapable of making a cross country flight by himself, but rather his fondness for improvisation. Calling Jack from his Jeep at the airport Sunday afternoon, Mac had stayed true to his brand and told him that he wasn’t sure when exactly he would be back home. The lecturing spot was for Frankie’s upper-level engineering students Monday through Friday and he could fly home after his last class let out, but if any of their old college friends were in town that weekend he was planning on staying to catch up.

Jack knew there was a chance he wouldn’t see his partner until work Monday morning. When Sunday evening rolled around, after a full week of being anxious and on edge worrying about Mac being all the way on the other side of the country, and he hadn’t heard from him, Jack forced himself to go to sleep and ignore the feeling of dread that he should know better than to ignore. A move he seriously regretted when Mac didn’t show up at Phoenix on Monday morning.

Any calls to his cell phone were going unanswered, though Frankie picked up right away, despite the time difference, and assured him that she had driven Mac to the airport on Friday evening. Riley easily tracked Mac’s cell to LAX, worsening the dread building in Jack’s gut, infallible proof that Mac had made it back to Los Angeles. Bozer and Leanna volunteered to make the trip, in crazy mid-day traffic, out to the airport and had returned a few hours later with Mac’s cellphone and jacket from lost and found, his duffle bag from unclaimed luggage, and somber faces. Riley had scoured their surveillance feed and Mac was nowhere to be found.

The video came in a few hours after that.

“Hello, Phoenix,” Jack heard Murdoc’s voice gloating throughout the room before he even looked up at the screen and his heart sank. “You know, I used to think you were all a fairly intelligent group of super spies but I’m starting to wonder if my friend Angus here is the only one of you with any sense at all.”

“Riley, can you trace this?” Matty hissed over his words and the frantic keyboard clicking already coming from Riley’s laptop.

“I’m trying.”

“You see,” Murdoc continued, “It was quite stupid to leave MacGyver alone, vulnerable, and in a public place no less! Made it almost too easy to snatch him up this time. Almost. But don’t worry,” He paused to grin into the camera as if he knew it would be Jack watching on the other end and he was doing everything in his power to draw out his misery. “I upped the difficulty level in other ways.”

“Riley,” Bozer started again but she quickly cut him off.

“I don’t have anything, Boze.” She didn’t bother to look at him as she spoke, eyes continuously flicking between the projector wall and her computer. “I’ll let you know.”

“Brick walls,” Leanna pointed out. “Not cinderblock. Old. Not much light. We’re probably looking at somewhere underground.”

Jack shook his head. “There’s a winidow, high up in the left corner. Small, metal grate. He took him underground last time, he won’t repeat himself. It’s the bottom floor, maybe a basement, of a building. Possibly residential but probably commercial. That brick’s old, but it’s clean.” He barely noticed Bozer pulling out his own computer, attempting to pinpoint a location based on what Jack and Leanna were seeing. “And since he went abandoned last time I’d be willing to bet this time it’s not. The last thing he wants is to fall into a pattern, to become predictable. Wherever he’s keeping him it’s in use, look for buildings matching it that are owned by someone who could be bought. Money’s not an issue for him.”

“I’ve had him for days,” Murdoc continued, his face positively gleeful, projected onto the wall. “And I learned a thing or two from the last time you let me get my hands on your boy, Jack. You almost caught me that time. Almost. So by the time you and your friends are watching this delightful little show, I’ll be long gone. Don’t worry, I’m not taking Angus with me, as much as I would love to. He’s right where I left him, though I will admit he’s a little worse for wear… sorry about that. We were just having so much fun!”

“I’ve got four locations,” Bozer intercepted, giving Jack a welcome reprieve from the madman’s words. “They all match your criteria and are less than half an hour from LAX.”

Riley quickly jumped out of her seat, bringing her computer to sit next to Bozer, comparing his map with the one she had constructed of cell towers in the area.

As if he could see exactly what they were doing, Murdoc continued. “Now, I’m sure by now Riley, if not all of you, are closing in on me. I can’t tell you where I’m at now, where you’ll find everyone’s favorite little boy wonder because, well, where’s the fun in that? But I do hate that everyone else had to miss out on all the fun Angus and I were having.”

“Anything?” Jack asked, voice hoarse with a sickening combination of fear and dread, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“We’re down to two,” Riley looked up at him, nodding in sympathy. “We’ll find him.”

“Give me the coordinates,” Matty instructed, speaking for the first time in so long that Jack had honestly forgotten that she was in the room. “I’ll have a tac-team sent to each one under orders not to breach the premises until Jack arrives at whichever one we narrow it down to.”

Jack would be forever indebted to her.

“When you opened this video,” Murdoc continued, “It set off a little chain of events. Modern technology is such a wonder, really. As soon as you started watching me, another link was sent from the same account.” He paused to clap his hands excitedly. “I bet none of you even noticed, did you? Too busy watching, trying to track me down? Well, I got a notification as soon as that second email sent, assuring that I have plenty of time to say my goodbyes to my dear MacGyver and make my grand escape. You won’t find me. What you will find, though, on that second email, is a little sampling of just what Mac and I have been up to for the past few days. A bit of a highlight reel, if you will. I do hope you enjoy!” And with a little wave and a wink that Jack swore actually made eye contact with him, the video came to a close.

Leanna was already opening the second link.

It was filmed in the same room. Different camera angle, this time stationary, propped up on a table or something across the room, and Jack could make out a little more of the windows he caught a glimpse of in the first video.

“See if you can get a clear picture of the view from those windows,” Matty said.

Riley nodded, and a quick glance away from the scene playing out across the war room’s wall showed that she was doing just that. Jack looked back up when he heard his partner’s voice.

“No drugs this time?”

“Nope,” Murdoc grinned, menacingly pacing back and forth across the floor in front of the chair Mac was bound to, interfering with Jack getting a clear look at the blonde man for more than a second. “It occurred to me, after you cut our time together so short last time, that while the drugs were practical, they had the unpleasant side effect of leaving you with a haze over all the fun memories we made.”

“What I remember wasn’t exactly my idea of fun,” Mac shot back. He was leaning back in his chair, feigning casualty despite the manacles around his wrists and ankles, trying not to show how rattled he truly was.

“See, that’s exactly my point! You don’t have a clear memory of it. How do you know it wasn’t as much fun for you as it was for me?” Murdoc taunted.

“We’ll call it an educated guess,” Mac glared. “You wanna tell me what this is about now? Why I’m here?”

“Oh, MacGyver,” Murdoc purred. “We’re about to have so much fun…”

The camera blacked out, static crackling across the speakers in the quiet room. As soon as Jack was about to ask what had happened because surely that wasn’t all he sent, another video started up. Mac looked significantly worse than he had a few heartbeats ago, having long since given up the nonchalant act, his hear was sweaty and disheveled, pushed back off his face, assumingly by Murdoc’s gloved hands since his own were still secured to the arms of his chair. That thought alone was enough to make Jack’s skin crawl. He was sporting a black eye now as well, with a slowly bleeding cut across his cheekbone.

“You know,” He said, pulling himself back up to sitting fully in the chair instead of where he had been leaning, recovering from the hard punch, “When Jack finds us he’s probably going to kill you this time. I might just let him. This is getting pretty old.”

“Oh, Jack is coming,” Murdoc assured, dropping to his knees at Mac’s side. “The only question is when. I’m not quite sure he even knows you’re missing yet. Let alone who took you or where. Though I’m sure I am at the top of his list of suspects. Do you remember that old commercial, Angus?” Murdoc asked, quickly changing topics. “For the lollipops? “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” with the little boy and the owl?”

The fight in Mac’s blue eyes dimmed, just a bit, as confusion took over.

A harsh slap to his already injured cheek snapped him back into focus and sent the blood running freely down his face once again. “I asked you a question. Do answer it please.”

Mac nodded.

“Well, I’m pondering a very similar question,” Murdoc’s smile grew darker. “How many breaks does it take to summon a guard dog? Ah, one?” Without warning, he reached out and grabbed the smallest finger on Mac’s left hand and bent it back until it snapped. Mac bit his lip but it wasn’t enough to keep the moan of pain contained. “Ah, two?” At the crack of the next finger, Jack found himself flinching harder than Mac. “Ah, three?” Another break and Mac was fighting a losing battle with his stoicism.

Murdoc turned around, smirking directly at Jack through the camera. “The world may never know.”

Bozer had turned a fairly impressive shade of green and there were tears shining in Riley’s eyes as Jack turned his pleading gaze their way. “We’re going as fast as we can, Jack.” Leanna’s voice was soft, sympathetic. He just nodded and looked back at the screen before the next clip began.

Each one was short, Jack knew. While it felt like the moments were dragging by each one couldn’t have been more than a few minutes long. He stood there and watched as Mac’s strength crumbled while Murdoc continued his games. He moved on from breaking bones, though by the way Mac was leaning and favoring his right side in the later videos, they missed Murdoc giving his ribs the same attention he had his fingers. They kept watching as he brought out knives and the pliers and various other demented ‘toys’ that Mac had escaped before giving him a chance to try out last time. 

Jack wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep watching, even though he knew, logically, that everything he was seeing had already happened, when the latest clip began and Murdoc pulled out what appeared to be a tampered-with soldering iron. Luckily Riley shut the video off as a map appeared on the wall, an address circled.

“Go get him,” Matty ordered. “There’s a team waiting if you need backup and I’ll have medical meet you there.”

Jack didn’t remember a single second of the drive. It somehow felt both as if it had taken hours and no time at all, but eventually, he was skidding to a stop alongside the other cars Phoenix had sent to surround the building. He didn’t even take the time to see what exactly the place was. He didn’t care. The door splintered with one solid kick from his boot and he ran, gun drawn, through the first floor until he found the basement entrance.

He thought he was prepared. He’d watched, clip after clip, as Murdoc kept playing his sick games. He knew Mac was going to be in bad shape, but it was still a shock, getting his first glimpse of him as he descended the stairs.

Jack wasn’t sure if there was a spot on him that wasn’t covered in blood or bruises or burns. Arms, legs, chest, everywhere he looked all he saw was hurt. “Oh, kid,” He wasn’t even aware that he had breathed the words but as soon as they fell past his lips Mac’s head jolted up, recognizing the voice, straining to find his partner in the dim room. One eye was completely swollen shut and the only clean patches on Mac’s face were the tear-stained tracks that had run through the blood, washing it away.

Through it all, Mac smiled. A weak little lopsided curl of his lips that sent one of the scabbed-over cracks bleeding again. “Knew you’d come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all didn't seriously think I could do 31 whump prompts without a visit from Murdoc, did you?


	15. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a much needed early Season 1 Jack and Riley scene that doesn't happen at the expense of Mac and Jack's friendship. Because the show writers always seemed incapable of doing that themselves...

Jack sighed. “Now why’d he have to go and throw the damn key into the lake for?”

“Be sure and have Thornton add that to her list of interrogation questions when we get back,” Mac laughed. “You want me to dive in after it?”

“Absolutely not,” Jack leaned down and began taking off his boots. “Last time I had to drag you out of the water was Lake Como and I don’t want a repeat of that. ‘Sides, it’s like, ninety in the shade right now. Dip in the lake might make this heat just a little more bearable.” With a wink, Jack tossed his wallet and phone out of his pocket and onto the dock beside his boots and dove into the quiet lake.

Mac looked up as he heard the van door slam closed and saw Riley quickly making her way down the walkway towards the water. “What the hell is he doing?” She asked, looking up at Mac with panic in her eyes.

“Guy threw the vault key into the lake,” Mac explained with a shrug, not understanding her worry. “Jack went after it.”

“Are you serious?” She started frantically scanning the water, searching for any sign of Jack below. “He can’t…” Her words were cut off as Jack broke through the surface, wiping water from his eyes with one hand, the other securely holding on to the small silver key. 

“That’s gotta be some kinda record,” He called out as he swam closer to the dock and passed the key over to Mac. “Right?”  
Mac just grinned and reached down a hand to help pull Jack out of the water. “Yeah, well you can petition the Olympic committee on your own time. Until we get this key back to Phoenix we’re on the clock.”

“I hear you,” Jack climbed onto the dock, leaving wet footprints on the sun-warmed boards, and smiled at Riley when he saw her standing beside Mac. “I thought you were running surveillance in the car?”

“What… What the hell?” She sputtered lunging forward to shove at Jack’s shoulders, nearly toppling him back into the lake. “All I’ve heard these past few months is how watching Mac run around the world doing stupid stuff is going to cause you to have a heart attack and then you go and pull that?”

Jack wiped a hand over his face again, brushing more water from his eyes as he stared at Riley as if she had lost her mind.

She took a breath. “You told me you couldn’t swim.”

Jack frowned, reaching down and pulling his dripping t-shirt over his head, wringing it out and adding more water to the puddle forming at his bare feet. “When did you go and get that crazy idea in your head?” Jack asked as he tried to dry his face off with the partially wrung out shirt. “Course I can swim. Who can’t swim?”

Riley didn’t answer, staring blankly at Jack’s bare torso, eyes flicking rapidly from one scar to another.

Of course, Mac put the pieces together first. He caught Jack’s eye and reached up, rubbing at one of his own scars, the bullet wound from Lake Como, hoping Jack would catch on quickly. “What?” He asked, drawing his eyebrows together in confusion before realization dawned in his eyes. “Oh,” He glanced down at his own collection of scars before looking back up at Riley. “I did tell you that, didn’t I?”

She nodded blankly, still staring.

“I’m gonna go call Thornton,” Mac said softly, excusing himself from the private conversation. “Let her know we found the key.”

Jack sighed and sat down on the edge of the dock, heavy, denim-clad legs finding their way back into the water. “C’mon,” He patted an almost-dry patch of wooden planks beside him. “I think we need to talk.”

“I thought,” Riley began after she had sat down beside Jack and pulled off her own boots. “I thought, these past few months, that the only lie was about your job. And I get it, why you had to tell us that. But there were others, weren’t there? A lot of them, that you told us.”

“Not because I wanted to,” Jack’s voice was gentle, guarded. “And I tried to make sure that when I did have to bend the truth it wouldn’t hurt you. Guess that backfired, huh? But it was easier to tell you a little white lie, like that I couldn't swim, then try to explain where all the scars came from.”

“What did you tell Mom? I mean, she wasn’t twelve, surely she was smarter than I was. She had to call your bluff on a lot of it.”

“Oh, she did,” Jack smiled, despite himself, at the memory. “And for the record, you were the smartest twelve-year-old I’ve ever met. But I tried so hard to protect you, from all this. I could be a little more honest with Diane. She couldn’t know about me working for the CIA, but she knew I was former Delta.” He hesitated. “I had to tell her that much, nothing else could explain the nightmares.”

Riley nodded slowly. “So you would tell her just enough to keep her from asking about the details.”

“Need to know basis,” He agreed, hating the bitter tang the words left behind on his lips. “At least for the obvious ones. You can’t really pass off a bullet wound as something else, so I just told her those were from my old Army days and I wasn’t ready to talk about ‘em.”

“And the rest?”

“Well,” Jack pointed to a rough patch over his hip. “Burn. As far as your momma knew it was from a car accident, not being caught in the blowback from a bomb. This knife wound?” He lifted his arm to show a long thin line across his upper ribs. “Both began and ended my rodeo career. There’s one from a compound fracture on my leg,” he kicked up his foot, sending water droplets flying, “That she always thought came from playin’ football under those famous Texas Friday night lights. Come to think of it, that’s probably why she was always so against the idea of you playing any organized sports.” Jack laughed. “But it was better than tellin’ her I’d got thrown off the roof of a two-story building.” 

Riley nodded, quiet and contemplative until Jack finally broke the silence. “You back to hatin’ me?”

“I never hated you,” She corrected automatically. “Not even when you left. I was mad and I was hurt and then I was mad at myself for letting you in to hurt me to begin with, but I never hated you.”

“So we’re okay?”

“Yeah,” She turned her head to smile at him. “We’re okay.”

The dock gently swayed beneath them as Mac stepped back onto it. “Hey, Jack I found some clothes in the van if you wanna go get changed before we head out. Thornton’s waiting on us.”

“Yeah, alright,” He stood, pausing to rest a hand briefly on Riley’s shoulder before making his way up the hill towards the surveillance van.

“You weren’t lying,” Riley said once Jack was out of earshot. “When you told me that this job was dangerous.”

“Did you think I was?”

“No,” She sighed, “But believing it and seeing the physical evidence of it are two totally different things.”

“I meant it when I warned you that this job would get you hurt,” Mac said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Jack’s proof of that. I’ve got plenty scars of my own, though I don’t brag about them the way Jack does. But what I’m sure he didn’t tell you just now, is that the reason he has so many of those scars, the reason he gets hurt so frequently doing what we do, is because he is constantly willing to throw himself into the line of fire. He’ll take every hit, every fall, hell, every bullet that he can if it means keeping a civilian, or me, safe. And now you’re on that list too.”

“Yeah?” Riley could hear the guilt in Mac’s words, how hard it was, even after all the years they had worked together, to accept that Jack would so easily sacrifice himself to keep the people he loved protected.

“To be honest with you Riley? I’m not so sure you were ever taken off his list to begin with. He knew exactly where to find you, no hesitation. And keeping you onboard? Dropping the rest of your sentence like that? It wasn’t as easy as he made it sound. He fought for you. Just because he left your life doesn’t mean you ever left his.”

And it clicked, suddenly, with those words, that all the little lies Jack had told her growing up were his way of keeping her safe. He had been taking hits, even then, though they weren’t physical, to protect her. And while there was nothing she could do to repair the scars he already had, she was going to do her best to keep any new ones from forming.


	16. Pinned Down

Mac was beginning to panic.

It wasn’t something he was proud of, nothing to brag about. He could practically hear the good-natured teasing from his friends as they all gathered around his fire pit that evening. He would duck his head, hide his red cheeks behind another swig from the cold glass bottle in his hand until, finally, Jack would catch on to his embarrassment and draw the jokes to a close.

Of course, none of that could happen until he got free. Until the heavy metal beam pressing across his chest was lifted and he could make his way out of the partially collapsed building around him. Maybe, Mac began to think, his panic wasn’t completely irrational.

Before he could progress further into his downward spiral, though, a familiar voice cut through the fear. “Hey, hoss,” Jack’s hands were on him then, one carding through his hair as the other pressed against his neck, his concerned frown deepening as he felt the rapid beating against his fingertips. “You’re alright.”

Mac shook his head, just slightly, not enough to risk removing Jack’s hands and the comfort they were providing. “Need out,” He closed his eyes as another wave of fear, bitter and oppressive, washed over him. “Can’t, I can’t breathe.”

“Hey, now,” Jack shifted, moving to sit directly in Mac’s line of vision. “Yeah, you can.” He pulled the hand away from Mac’s neck but before his body could use up any precious, hard to come by, air on letting out a whimper, Jack had reached beneath the beam and wrapped his fingers around Mac’s own. “Help’s on the way, kiddo. You just gotta hang in there for me.”

Against his will, Mac’s eyes welled up. He slammed his eyes shut again, against the traitorous tears, but they marched steady tracks across his temples and down into his hair. He couldn’t move either of his arms to wipe them away so Jack did it for him.

“Slow, easy breaths,” Jack coached, trying to follow his own advice and keep his own breathing under control, to keep his hands from trembling. He couldn’t let Mac know just how rattled he was, how desperately he was waiting to hear the sounds of first responders arriving to help. Mac was freaking out enough for the both of them, he could fall apart later, in private, once Mac was safe. “You’re okay.” He hoped it wasn’t a lie.

“Hurts,” The sound was more whine than an actual word.

“I’m sure it does,” Jack tried his best to keep his voice light. “This thing’s hella heavy. That’s why you’re not supposed to go and get yourself trapped under it.”

“Not… my fault.”

“Yeah, brother, I know.” Jack tightened his grip on Mac’s hand. His fingers were beginning to grow cold from the lack of blood circulation. “It’s usually never your fault. You always seem to end up payin’ the price though.”

“Want out of here,” Mac whispered, turning desperate eyes towards Jack.

“Soon,” Jack promised. “Real soon. Matty’s got a crew headed our way to help me get this thousand-pound rod of steel off you. Get you outta here, checked out at the local ER, on the plane headed back home in time for dinner.”

His fire pit, surrounded by the safety of his home and his friends, even with their teasing and jokes at his expense, was beginning to sound better and better. “Home,” He repeated, holding the mental image in his mind, focusing on the open space around him, the large, comfy deck and the LA night sky above.

“Yup, safe and sound.” Jack breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the faintest trills of sirens, coming to assist. “You hear that, man? Just a little while longer and this’ll all be over.”

Mac pulled his eyes away from Jack’s for a moment to look back over his shoulder at the doorway, struggling to hear the sounds of sirens Jack was hearing over the rush of blood in his ears. “You’re staying though, right?” Mac asked, panic kicking up another notch as he scrambled with numb fingers to grasp onto Jack’s hand even tighter.

“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” Jack assured with a grin, infinitely easier and relaxed than he actually felt. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”


	17. "Stay with me"

“Huh-uh, kiddo,” Jack called. “No sleeping. I need you to stay with me, Mac.” Normally he would have reached out and lightly shook Mac’s shoulder to wake him up gently. If they were hard-pressed for time he might have resorted to a cheek pat, just this side of too easy to qualify as a slap. Since both Jack’s hands were busy carrying a severely concussed blonde genius through the forest to their exfil site, he used that positioning to his advantage and dug a couple of fingers into the spot just below Mac’s ribs that he happened to know was extremely ticklish.

Mac just groaned an incoherent string of syllables into the fabric of Jack’s shirt and buried his face deeper into his shoulder.

“Mac,” Jack tried again. “C’mon dude, I’m carryin’ you out of here so you don’t have to jostle that brain of yours any more than necessary but you gotta meet me halfway, I need you to wake up.”

“M’wake,” Mac assured, though he made no move to provide any evidence to support his claim. “Jus keep walking.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Well, duh. At least one of us has to or we’re never makin’ it out of here. 

“Head hurts,” Mac spoke into Jack’s collar bone. “Can’t walk.”

“Yeah, I bet it does,” Jack said, memories of watching the arms dealer they had been tracking grabbing Mac by the hair and slamming the side of his head into the heavy wooden doorframe of his cabin, instantly knocking him unconscious. Jack was sure he would be reliving the moment when he watched, helpless, as Mac crumbled to the floor over and over again in his nightmares for weeks. “That’s why I’m not askin’ you to make it out of here on your own two feet. But you gotta stay awake for me, okay?”

“K,” Mac agreed, squinting up at Jack through barely-opened eyes. “How much longer? Don’t feel good.”

Jack’s worry kicked up another gear. “We talkin’ a general discomfort kind of not feelin’ good or the getting ready to hurl chunks all over Jack’s favorite jacket kind?”

Mac frowned, giving the question some serious thought before deciding. “Somewhere in between?”

“That’s not exactly encouraging, brother,” Jack sighed. “Just a little longer, we’re almost there.”

“Oh,” Mac rehid his eyes against Jack’s shoulder. “Where’s there, again?”

“Our exfil chopper, remember?” Jack prompted gently. “Our ride home?”

“Home,” Mac mumbled. “‘S a good idea. I don’t feel good.”

“Yeah, bud, I know.” Jack turned sideways to ease his way through a thick overhang of tree branches blocking his path.

“Hey, Jack?”

“Yeah?” He glanced down to find two hazy, unfocused blue eyes staring up at him earnestly. “What’s up?”

Without a trace of anything other than complete seriousness in his voice, Mac answered. “I think I have a concussion.”


	18. Muffled Scream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda feel like I need to apologize to our boys for this one…

“I can get an exfil team to you, Mac, but ETA’s a little under four hours.” Matty’s voice crackled through the spotty cell reception but he heard enough for a pit to form in his stomach.

He turned away from his partner, sitting on the forest floor leaning heavily against the trunk of a tree, before answering. “He’s not gonna make it four hours, Matty.”

She sighed, sending the static coming through his phone’s speaker to new levels. “Any way you two can meet them halfway then? Cut that time in half?”

“Not on that leg,” Mac stole another glance at the quickly growing dark stain on Jack’s thigh. His hands were stained red, where he was attempting to hold pressure on the wound, but it was spreading too fast. “He’s not going anywhere like this, Matty. We need a medevac.”

“Four hours, Mac,” She repeated. “That’s the best I can do. What’s your plan B?”

"I don't have a plan B!" Mac ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "He needs help!"

“I don’t even have anyone other than you two in the country, Mac,” She continued. “So you need to think of something. I’ve got assistance headed your way but it’s not going to do any good if he dies before they get there.”

“He’s not gonna die. I won't let him.” Mac assured, ending the call, ignoring the smear of blood left behind on his phone screen from his thumb.

Jack’s blood.

He was surprised to find Jack’s eyes on him, bleary but focused, when he turned around. “Take a breath, kid. I’m alright.”

If the situation had been just a touch less dire, Mac probably would have laughed at the absurdity of his claim. “Man, you are pretty much the exact opposite of ‘alright’ at the moment.” He huffed as he dropped to his knees next to his partner. “This is bad, Jack.”

“Just a flesh wound,” Jack protested with a weak grin. “Hardly nothin’.”

“We’re on our own for a few hours,” Mac relayed the news, unable to meet Jack’s trusting gaze. “And what you’re calling a flesh wound I’m calling a bullet to the thigh that’s spilling way too much blood.”

“Yeah,” Jack looked down at his jeans, sticky with blood. “Judgin’ by the how I can’t put no weight on it at all, I’m pretty sure it’s lodged in bone. Hurts way worse than a regular GSW should. At this rate, I don’t have a few hours, do I?”

Refusing to agree with the ominous words, Mac shook his head. “I’ll think of something.”

“Nothin’ to think of,” Jack shrugged, dropping his head to rest against the trunk of the tree he was leaning on. “You know what to do. I trust you.”

“Yeah, well I don’t trust me,” Mac frantically scanned the quickly darkening woods around them, as if the fallen leaves or tree branches held a better solution. “Not with that. Not to you.”

“Can’t hurt much worse than it already does,” Jack said, the joke falling flat, even to his ears. “C’mon,” He took a breath to steel himself before moving, reaching a hand into the pocket of his jeans, and pulled out a lighter. “One step at a time. If it makes you feel any better just tell yourself you’re buildin’ it cause it’s getting dark and cold’s gonna start setting’ in.”

Mac glared at him, still frantically racking his brain for another option before he snatched the little silver square of metal out of Jack’s hand and stood up to go find enough kindling to start a fire. “Keep pressure on that,” He nodded towards Jack’s leg.

Jack offered a lazy salute before pressing down on his injured leg with both hands.

Mac had a fire going in no time at all, small enough that it wouldn’t be difficult to keep an eye on but large enough to provide some heat. He was still refusing to think of its other purposes, a task that became monumentally more difficult when he turned around to find Jack’s camp knife laying beside him.

“Jack,” Mac closed his eyes briefly but when he opened them again the knife was still there. “No. There’s gotta be...”

“There isn’t.” Jack interrupted him, the knife crackling through the dried leaves on the forest floor as Jack slid it over to him. “Unless you wanna go the gunpowder route and, seein’ as how I got shot runnin’ away from those bastards, I’m guessing they’re still lookin’ for us. I’d rather not waste a bullet unless we have to. ‘Sides, they say that’s the riskier way to do it.” He nodded towards the knife. “And you ain’t meltin’ that shiny red handle offa your’s to do this with.”

Mac hesitantly picked up the knife, turning it over in his hand, examining the dents and stains on the blade. Despite its obvious age, it was still wickedly sharp. “You’re sure?”

Jack nodded. “I’ll do it myself if you don’t want to. Lord knows I can’t blame you for not wanting that memory on your conscious. I ain’t gonna ask that of you. But it’s gotta be done. I’m fadin’ fast, bud.”

And that admission, that through the pain and fear Jack was able to tell that he was losing too much blood, combined with the absurdity that his partner would be willing to inflict even more misery on himself just to save Mac from having to do it, was the deciding factor that prompted Mac into movement. He dug the first aid kit from his pack, setting out a bottle of alcohol and a roll of gauze, before taking his canteen over to Jack, tilting it up for him to take a drink before draining the remaining water over an old t-shirt from the bottom of his bag. He wrapped the dripping cloth around the handle of Jack’s knife and balanced it precariously over one of the rocks surrounding the fire, the blade directly in the flames.

“You’re sure about this?” Mac asked again. “We can…” His voice trailed off, not having another option to suggest.

“Mac, brother, the reason that big brain of yours can’t think of a better idea is cause there ain’t one,” Jack said, words slightly beginning to slur, accent growing more pronounced. “It’ll be alright.”

“This is so far from alright,” Mac shook his head morosely but Jack was right, there was no better option. “How do you wanna do this?”

“Uh,” Jack glanced around the dark woods surrounding them, the first glint of fear showing in his brown eyes. “Maybe layin’ down? Is it completely selfish to say I’m kinda hopin’ to pass out before we get too far into this?”

“I’d actually prefer it,” Mac agreed, moving to help him lay down on the forest floor. “Um, I probably should go ahead and clean it out first, okay?” He held up the bottle of rubbing alcohol.

Jack nodded. “Not gonna do much good when the bullet’s still in there, but no point in sealin’ any more germs in than we have to.” He reached out a hand, opening and closing his fingers in a grabbing movement. “Gimmie.” With his free hand, he pulled on the hole in his jeans, ripping it open further before he popped the lid on the bottle with his teeth and poured it unceremoniously over his bleeding thigh.

“I could have done that,” Mac said a moment later, after most of the high-pitched keening had faded from Jack’s panted breaths.

“No point in lettin’ you have all the fun,” Jack forced his lips into a poor attempt at a grin. “‘Sides, you already called dibs on the next round.”

“You ready?” Mac asked softly, unable to meet Jack’s eyes.

Jack nodded, sending the leaves beneath his head crackling. “Hey, uh, wait a sec. Give me your belt?” Mac choked back a wince as he quickly pulled the strip of leather free from his belt loops and handed it over to Jack, watching as his shaking blood-stained hands folded it a couple times, preparing it to slip into his mouth.

“Whatever happens, bud,” Jack said, staring past Mac at the flickering fire behind him. “It’s fine. You hear me? However this plays out, whatever I say, whatever I do, you don’t let it get in your head, alright? Don't worry about me, I’ll be just fine. It's gotta be done.”

Mac couldn’t promise what Jack had asked of him, he knew the next few moments were going to haunt him for years to come, so he just made his way over to the fire and forced himself to wrap his fingers around the warm leather handle of the knife. Focusing on the dry heat beneath his palm instead of the way the brightly glowing blade illuminated his path back to Jack like an eerie red flashlight.

"I'm sorry," He said softly, voice cracking as he dropped to his knees again at Jack's side. "So sorry."

Jack nodded, the unwavering trust in his eyes tainted slightly with traces of fear and dread before he closed his lids and placed the folded belt between his teeth. Mac took a breath to steady himself and shifted so that his knees were resting on Jack's shin and the hand that wasn't holding the knife came to rest on his thigh above the bleeding wound. Fighting his every instinct to close his own eyes against the scene playing out before him, Mac steeled himself and pressed the glowing blade into the wound.

Jack screamed. It was muffled, barely, by the belt clenched tightly between his teeth, the sound causing the leather to vibrate, causing an almost buzzing sound that Mac tried to focus on instead of his hands as he shifted the knife. Slowly rotating it, making sure all the edges of the hole in Jack's thigh were sealed. It felt like it lasted an eternity but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds later that Jack's scream suddenly cut off and all the tension that had been radiating throughout his body instantly dissipated as he finally passed out.

Mac lifted his trembling hand away from Jack's leg, since he no longer had to hold the older man still, and pressed it against the side of his neck, sighing in relief at the jack-rabbiting pulse he found beneath his fingers. He looked away from the tears reflecting on Jack's face in the dim firelight and finished with the knife quickly. He was pouring the rest of the bottle of alcohol over the cauterized bullet wound when the smell finally hit him.

He had just enough time to place the still smoldering knife onto a rock, safely away from the bed of dried leaves surrounding them, and crawl a few feet away on his hands and knees before bringing up everything in his stomach. Kneeling there, gagging, coughing up strings of bile, Mac tried his best to pull himself together. Jack needed him. He couldn't afford to fall apart now, not yet, so he dragged himself over to their packs and unclipped Jack's canteen, taking a small swig of water, knowing that it was all they had left and needed to conserve it until rescue arrived. He spit the bitter liquid out into the fire, directing his anger and guilt and worry towards the flames that had inadvertently caused his friend even more pain.

"Mac?" Jack's hoarse voice called out through the night, breaking Mac out of his own mind.

"I'm here," He assured, settling down at Jack's side and grabbing his hand. "I'm right here, big guy. How you feelin'?"

"Been better," Jack admitted, sparing a quick glance down at his leg and wincing at the sight. "But I'm still alive so I guess that's somethin'. You okay?"

Mac huffed out a humorless laugh. "I don't think you're in any position to be worrying about me right now, Jack."

"I'll always worry 'bout you," Jack reminded him. "Till my dyin' day. Which isn't gonna be today, I promise. 'Sides, I may be the one with the melty burnin' hole in my leg but you're the one cryin'."

"I'm not..." Mac protested, reaching a self-conscious hand up to his face, only to pull his fingers away damp with tears. "Oh,"

"I'm sorry, bud," Jack squeezed his hand tighter. "Sorry I made you do that."

Mac shook his head. "You didn't make me. Hell, you offered to do it yourself. Good thing I didn't let you too, or you would have dropped that knife when you fainted, probably set the whole forest on fire."

"Hey, now," Jack protested with a smile, "Can we not call it fainted? Let's stick with passed out. Lost consciousness. Somethin' a little tougher than fainted. Let me keep at least some of my dignity."

And that was the moment, right then, that Mac knew everything was going to be okay.


	19. Asphyxiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knew all those years over in the Teen Wolf fandom would pay off someday. Y’all can blame this one on Dr. Alan Deaton.

“You know,” Jack panted as he tightened his hands around the strand of coiled rope over his head and pulled himself up, drawing as deep a breath as he could until his shaking arms couldn’t hold him any longer and his body sagged downward, the rope pulling tight around his bound wrists. “Eventually we’re not gonna be able to keep this up.”

“Getting tired… already?” Mac attempted a teasing grin that landed closer to being a pained grimace. Rather than meeting Jack’s eyes, he looked down, for what felt like the millionth time, at his partner’s boots, toes hovering just inches off the floor.

“Naw, not me,” Jack smiled back. “Worryin’ ‘bout you,” He paused to blink away the dark spots forming in front of his eyes. “Guy who prefers cardio over strength training. Me? I can go on all day.”

Mac didn’t bother wasting any of his flagging energy reserves on sending a fond head shake Jack’s way. “Sure,” Mac breathed, wincing as he got a better hold on his own strand of rope and pulled himself up again, sucking in air hungrily. “But all those muscles add more weight.” He bit back a groan as his arms gave out and he collapsed down again. “More pressure on your chest.”

“You callin’ me fat?” Jack asked. “I’ll kick your ass…” Another grating, ineffective, shallow breath. “When we get outta here.”

The corrective ‘if’ hung heavy and unsaid between them.

It was getting worse, they both could tell. The length of time they could hold themselves up was growing shorter as their strength ran out but the periods between when they were left hanging, suffocating, slowly asphyxiating themselves, were growing less and less as well. The need for oxygen was growing too fast and they were losing the momentum to pull their bodies up long enough to replace what they were using.

Jack had suggested, when their captors first suspended them from the heavy wooden beam on the ceiling and they realized that their feet not touching the ground beneath them was by design, that the obvious way out of their situation was to pull his shoulders out of their sockets. He was convinced that would give him enough extension to reach the ground and offer both some relief and a way to work himself, and then Mac, free. Mac had talked him out of it, claiming that despite the fact that it would be excruciatingly painful and would leave him incapacitated for weeks with both arms injured, most likely he wouldn’t have enough dexterity in his dislocated arms to work free of the thick ropes.

It hadn’t been an ideal plan, not by a long shot, but Jack was starting to regret not going for it while he had the chance. He didn’t have the strength left to pull himself up the rope high enough to give his body the type of fast drop it would take to pull his shoulders out anymore. He knew it would have been miserable, but it couldn’t have been any worse than their current situation. His head was pounding, vision swimming, and his arms were growing weaker by the second. He was already losing feeling in his hands, which was making it even more difficult to get a steady grip on the rope to pull himself up to take a few precious breaths. And he was trying not to think about the crushing pain in his chest.

“This is a fun one… ain't it kid?”

Mac closed his eyes and nodded. “Did you know…” He paused to pull himself up once more and Jack watched the muscles in his arms quiver from the exertion. “That this is actually how people died…” Jack winced despite his own pain when Mac’s grip gave out and the rope pulled taut again. “From crucifixion?”

“Can’t say that I did,” Jack was closer to the door so he heard the sound behind it before Mac did. He tried to turn his head to see. “Guess my Sunday school teacher…” His arms barely lasted a few seconds that time around, “left that part of the story out. You hear that?”

“Cavalry?” Mac asked hopefully, peering around Jack to get a better look at the door.

“Hopefully,” Jack panted. “‘Less they’re just checkin’ to see if we’ve croaked yet.”

They waited until the door opened, crashing against the wall with a bang, to reveal Bozer standing on the other side. Jack’s anxiety immediately lessened at the relieved sigh that tumbled from Mac’s lips.

“Damn,” Bozer whistled, stepping into the room. “Talk about hangin’ someone out to dry.” he smiled at his joke and pressed a finger to the comm in his ear. “Hey, Ri, I found ‘em. Call of the search.”

“You wanna quit chattin’...” Jack struggled to pull himself up enough to even draw a decent breath. “And get us outta here?”

“Sure thing,” Bozer pulled a tac knife from his belt and quickly crossed the room to release Mac’s rope.

“Jack first,” Mac insisted, “Get him down. Heavier. Worse.”

Bozer frowned, clearly not liking the idea, but he trusted Mac’s judgment and went to cut Jack down without question. He collapsed to the floor with a moan, sucking in air like he was drowning, arms throbbing as blood began to flow through them again. He closed his eyes as the room spun around him.

Seconds later he heard Mac drop to the floor just a few feet away. He pried open one eye to see his partner sitting, elbows propped up on his knees, fingers picking strands of rope fibers from the raw, bloodied, bands around his wrists. “You good?”

Mac nodded. “You?” His breaths were still coming in short gasps, his body had gone so long without breathing properly that it was trying to catch up.

“Will be,” Jack assured, reaching a hand up to rub at his aching chest. “Damn did that one suck. Not that I’m complaining, Boze, but next time could ya make the rescue a little quicker?”

Bozer was standing between them, arms crossed, eyes glancing back and forth between the two of them. “Okay, seriously, how do you two manage to get yourselves into situations like this?”


	20. Trembling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have a Sandbox chapter...

"You're shaking," Jack said, focusing his scope in on the tools in Mac's hands. 

"No, I'm not," Mac didn't bother looking away from the bomb in front of him and most definitely didn’t look down at the open space between the rafters he was balanced precariously on. "I'm fine." 

"We've been over here for goin' on six months now and you seriously think I can’t tell when somethin’s up with you? You ain’t that good a liar, kid. What’s wrong?” 

Mac’s sigh was a harsh rattle in his earpiece. “What’s wrong is there’s a bomb fastened to the roof of this crumbling building and I’m trying to disarm it in less than ideal conditions, Jack. Shut up and let me work.”

“This whole damn place is less than ideal,” Jack continued, unphased by the heat in Mac’s words. “Somethin’ bout this one’s got you rattled and I can’t help you ‘less you tell me what it is.” 

“And the fact that if I screw this up, or can’t disarm it, the way this bomb is positioned could send shrapnel and debris flying for nearly a mile in all directions isn’t reason enough?” 

“Nope,” Jack shook his head, scanning the view from his perch on top of the building across the street. “I’ve watched you handle a lot worse under a lot more pressure. And this is the one that leaves you quakin’ in your boots? Something don’t add up.” 

“Maybe it’s your constant complaining,” Mac muttered as he finally pried the casing off the bomb with a soft pop. “Ever think of that?” 

“Naw,” Jack smirked. “That can’t be it. I’m charming as hell. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were afraid of heights and bein’ up there’s making you nervous.”

He had only been teasing, he really had, but Mac’s silence spoke volumes and the grin instantly faded from his lips. 

“Damn, you are, aren’t you?” Jack asked, pulling a pair of binoculars from his vest and sighting them in on Mac, watching the way his hands were still shaking, the same as he had seen from his scope, but more alarming to Jack was the tension radiating throughout his EOD Tech, the way that every one of his muscles seemed to be trembling, just slightly. What he could see of Mac’s face was ghostly pale beneath his helmet. “Why didn’t you say somethin’?” 

“I’m fine,” Mac insisted, but Jack picked up on the waver in his words immediately. “I can do this.” 

“Yeah, kid, I’m sure you can,” Jack pocketed his binoculars and scanned his rifle’s scope across the deserted corner of town they had been called to, searching for anything else to add to his worry. “But you shouldn’t have to. Not when it’s got you freaked out like this. C’mon. Get down from there and we’ll call it in. Send another team out to take care of this one.” 

“I said I can do it!” Mac’s voice carried across the dusty street, no need for the comms system. 

“Alright, alright,” Jack reached a hand beneath his glasses to rub at his eyes. “Your call.” 

Mac nodded and refocused all his attention back on the bomb in front of him. Jack watched, silent and tense, biting his tongue to keep himself quiet as Mac’s shaking hands fumbled their grip on the wires. After watching him drop the same wire three different times, he finally gave in and spoke up. “Okay, kid. What can I do to help?” 

“Nothing,” Mac’s voice was weaker than Jack had ever heard it. “Nothing, just,” 

“Okay, Angus, listen up,” Jack interrupted him, watching how Mac’s shaking briefly stopped at the use of his first name. He had been Carl’s Jr for months, or at least some variation of a teasing nickname until it had become just Mac. The Angus did exactly what Jack had been hoping for, though, and caught his attention. “You might not wanna admit it, even to yourself, but you’re freaking out up there kiddo. And it’s gettin’ worse every minute you’re there. It ain’t gonna get any better, so you might as well let me help you out so we can get you down before this turns bad on us, alright?” 

“Yeah,” Mac agreed softly. “Yeah, okay.” 

“Now let me try this again,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice walking the fine line between gentle and condescending. “What can I do?” 

“Um,” Mac hesitated. “Keep talking? Maybe? The complaining doesn’t help but, I don’t know, just hearing, knowing you’re there… kinda does.” 

“Okay then,” Jack smiled. “Talkin’, now that I can do.” And he launched into one longwinded story after another, recounting his memories of the highest places he’d ever found himself back in Texas. Tales of the hayloft in his granddad’s barn and how he would always bribe the kids into a long day of work bailing hay under the blazing sun by promising them that when they pulled the last wagon-load of bails into the yard he would park it just so beneath the hayloft window and the kids could take turns jumping out of it and into the hay beneath. The rope swing hanging off the tree branch at what he still swore was the best swimming hole in all of Texas, how if you swung just right you could land closer to the far side of the riverbank than the one you took off from. The water tower he and some of his high school buddies had climbed to declare, in spraypaint, just how awesome the class of ‘93 truly was. 

It didn’t make sense. There was no reason why Jack talking about all those other heights, stories that would have sent Mac’s stomach straight into his throat as he silently listened any other time, but it helped. He was able to focus on the task at hand, rather than the rickety floorboards yards beneath the beams he was balancing on and eventually, the bomb was disarmed. “Done,” He said softly, voice interrupting another one of Jack’s stories. “It’s done.” 

“Yeah?” Jack asked, “Then get outta there.” 

Mac carefully tucked his equipment into the pockets on his flac jacket and got a solid grip on the beams under his boots before swinging down and landing on the floor below. A little cloud of dust and sand kicked up from his movement and he breathed a sigh of relief at being back on solid ground. “Thanks, Jack.” 

"Course, hoss." Jack smiled. "I've got your six. Maybe one of these days you'll learn what that really means."


	21. Laced Drink

Jack was starting to think he wouldn't make it out of the club without a migraine. It was loud, music pumping through the speakers with a heavy bass beat and strobe lights flickering shades of neon across the dance floor. He watched it all from his spot leaning against the bar with a crystal glass of bourbon in his hand. He took a sip and grinned, Phoenix was footing the tab for their undercover operation so he had no qualms over ordering the top-shelf bottle. Good booze or not, the place definitely wasn’t his idea of a good time.

The arms dealer Phoenix was tracking, on the other hand, was quite fond of the club. He had been spotted there multiple times, always surrounded by a team of armed, private-hire bodyguards. Local law enforcement had contacted Phoenix for help in taking him down but he was sneaky, never getting caught making his deals himself. Instead, he had a seemingly endless supply of beautiful young women acting as his middlemen. Staring at the sea of scantily clad people crowding the building, Jack was fairly certain that this was the place he did his hiring. Now the only question was how did he convince the young women, out for a fun night of dancing and drinks, into working for him.

They had Riley undercover hoping to find out.

“Hey Mac, you got anything yet?” He turned his head and spoke into his shoulder.

“Other than a headache?” Mac’s voice asked through the comm in Jack’s ear. This wasn’t his idea of a fun night out either. “Nothing. You have eyes on Riley?”

“Riley’s fine,” She assured, sliding up beside Jack at the bar with a smile, lifting a handful of curls away from the back of her neck and fanning herself. “Just wondering if Matty could have sent me in with a more uncomfortable looking surveillance team. Seriously, guys. Loosen up.”

“Not gonna happen till we get out of this place,” Jack assured, never looking her way to keep their cover. “You see our guy?”

“Over in VIP,” Riley motioned just slightly, tilting her head to the left. “Did a few walks past, pretty sure he noticed me.”

“I’ll do a lap around,” Jack drained the last of his drink and set the tumbler down on the bar with a dull thud. “Make sure he don’t have his eyes set on someone else. And for the record? I hate this plan.”

“Everyone knows that, Jack,” Mac laughed. “Ri, I’m headed towards the bar. Me standing there talking to you will look way less suspicious than Jack.”

Jack ignored the not-so-thinly-veiled dig at his age as he began to make his way around the perimeter of the crowded club, keeping an eye on their mark in the VIP section as he went.

Riley clicked her comm off when Mac sat down at the barstool next to her’s. “I swear it’s like he doesn’t trust me to handle this.”

“Nah,” Mac shook his head with a smile. “He trusts you. He’s just worried. He’s got a bad feeling about this guy and, to be honest with you Riles? I kinda do too.”

“Not you too,” Riley rolled her eyes.

“I’m not saying you can’t do this,” Mac quickly amended, “Just that somethin’s up with this guy. There’s a piece to the puzzle we’re missing, all of us, not just you, and I don’t think it’s such a bad idea to keep our guards up on this one.”

“Fine,” Riley sighed, fighting back another eye roll and switching her comms back on. “Anything Jack?”

“You definitely got his attention,” Jack confirmed, anger seething in his voice. “Can’t keep his beady eyes off you. Looks real unhappy that Mac’s there chattin’ you up too.”

“Good,” Riley sent Mac a flirty smile easily viewed from behind the VIP velvet ropes. “That’s the idea.”

As if on cue, the bartender stepped over to them, placing two filled shot glasses in front of each of them.

“Oh, we didn’t order these,” Riley tried to push them back across the bar but he insisted.

“From the gentleman in the VIP booth,” He nodded towards their mark. “An invitation to come join him.”

“He wants me too?” Mac asked, voice a little too loud, smile a little too bright. Perfectly feigned innocence. “Awesome!”

“The lady’s drink is an invite,” The bartender corrected with a scowl. “Your’s is his way of politely asking you to leave. It would be wise if you do what he wants. He only asks this nicely once.”

Mac frowned down at his drink as Riley turned around on her barstool to give the man watching from his private booth a wave. If he hadn’t been he would have missed the bartender, in his perhipheral vision, quickly emptying a small vial from his shirtsleeve into Riley’s glass. And things suddenly began to make sense.

“Ri,” he said softly, reaching a hand out to grab her knee. “I need you to trust me right now, okay?”

“Okay…” She turned to face him questioningly.

“Keep up the act,” Mac instructed. “But take my drink, not yours.”

“What?” She looked around the bar in confusion. “They’re the same thing, Mac.”

“Trusting me. Remember?” He asked quickly, reaching over and nudging his shot glass closer to her. “Take this one, and go talk to him. Everything’s fine. Switch your comm over to record, so we can hear you but us talking in your ear won't distract you.”

Without further questions, Riley carefully picked up the glass that was supposed to be Mac’s and raised it to him in a toast. He picked up the other and clinked it against the one in her hand and they each downed the contents. “Nice chatting with you,” Riley said just loud enough for the bartender to hear as she stood up and made her way over to the VIP lounge area. 

Mac took a breath and braced his palms against the cool bartop. “Jack?” He asked softly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Riley had followed his instructions and didn’t react to his voice. The movement sent the room spinning. “Jack, I need you.”

“I’m headed your way, what’s wrong?” Jack’s voice came into Mac’s ear loudly, causing him to wince at the volume of his friend’s question. “Ri okay?”

“She’s fine,” Mac assured, searching through the crowds for Jack.

Despite his searching, he completely missed him walking up beside him until a steady hand found its way to his shoulder and Mac nearly jumped out of his seat. “What’s wrong?” Jack asked again. “Your voice is weird.”

“I need out of here,” Mac said softly, trying his best not to draw attention from anyone else in the club or alert the bartender that his plan had gone sideways. “Now.”

“Yeah,” Jack nodded, shooting a quick look to check in on Riley. He didn't want to leave her without backup but he knew Mac wouldn't suggest it if it wasn't important. “Okay, let’s get outside, huh? And then you can tell me what the hell’s goin’ on?”

Mac didn’t remember the walk outside. One second he was sitting at the bar and the next he was sitting on a cold sidewalk with his head lolling against the brick wall behind him. Jack was screaming, though his voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel, his phone pressed between his ear and shoulder as he kept a hand on the side of Mac’s neck. “Hang on, Matty, think he’s comin’ around. Mac?” Another hand reached up to gently cup his cheek. “You back with me, bud?”

He blinked hard a few times and tried to remember how to nod.

“If you could tell me what’s wrong, pal, I’d really appreciate it. Not gonna lie, you’ve got me kinda freaked out at the moment.”

Matty must have asked to be put on speaker then, because Jack pulled his hand away from Mac’s face just long enough to set his phone down on Mac’s knee. Her voice called out through the darkened alleyway they were in. “Okay, blondie. Start talking.”

“Bartender,” Mac said, his mouth was dry and his tongue felt too big to properly form the words he needed. “Tried… drug Riley.”

“Riley?” Jack looked up, wondering why the techs in Phoenix’s labs hadn’t created a pair of glasses that could let him see through the brick wall separating him from one of his kids.

Mac shook his head and when that wasn’t enough to get Jack’s attention, he lifted a heavy hand to tug on his shirtsleeve. “Didn’t. Me instead.”

“He drugged you instead?” Matty asked, piecing together Mac’s slurred words.

Mac nodded. “Saw him.”

“Does Ri know?” Jack asked, gently lowering his arm enough that Mac wouldn’t have to exert himself to keep ahold of his wrist since he showed no signs of letting go any time soon.

“Didn’t want her… worry.” Mac let his eyes drop closed.

“Nope,” Jack instantly began patting his cheek to wake him back up. “You stay awake now, you hear? Matty, he’s a mess. Needs checked out but I can’t just...”

“Get him back here,” Matty interrupted. “Medical will be briefed and waiting to run a tox screen when you get here. Bozer’s working in the lab tonight, I’ll send him over to keep an eye on Riley. She’ll be alright on her own until he gets there.”

It was never an ideal situation when Jack was forced to choose between his kids, but with Mac staring up at him, lashes blinking tiredly across his blown-wide blue eyes, it was no question where he needed to be. “Get Boze over here now, Matty. Leanna too, if she’s around. We’re comin’ in.”

Despite Jack’s insistence that he stay awake, Mac was asleep before they made it to Jack’s car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one became way longer than I intended, and it kinda had a natural break here anyway, so I split it up. Part two will be tomorrow’s chapter and since the prompt is hallucination it worked out kinda perfectly. 


	22. Hallucination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two

Mac sleeps. 

He doesn't realize at first, that he's sleeping. He's been drugged a few times in his life, occupational hazard, and this sleep is nothing like panicky unconsciousness that comes with that, triggering both his flight and his fight responders but leaving him trapped in his own mind unable to do either. It's not the bleary half-aware nightmares that tend to follow him waking up in a post-op room either, that leave his brain foggy, his emotions running on high alert, and, if he's being honest with himself, make him slightly clingy. 

This sleep is peaceful. Easy. He's at his Grandpa's old fishing cabin. Gramps is sitting on one side of him with a line in the water and Jack is on the other, kicked back in a lawn chair with a cold beer, yellow aviators and a smile on his face. Mac is keeping busy, making fishing lures the way Gramps taught him and following the lighthearted conversations between the two men framing him. He would have been content to stay there in his newfound dreamland, probably not even realizing it was a hallucination or a dream at all if it hadn't been for the nagging suspicion that something wasn't quite right. 

It hit him suddenly, that while he had memories with both men at that quiet little piece of property, they had never been there at the same time. Jack and Harry had never gotten a chance to meet, let alone spend a relaxing weekend away together. That was enough to make him begin to force his way out of his dream. With a final smile from his grandfather as the hallucination faded around him, Mac pried his eyes open. 

He instantly regretted that decision when daylight filling his bedroom hit him and left him slamming his eyes closed again with a moan. 

"Mac?" Jack's voice cut through the sudden pounding in his head and the bed dipped when Jack sat down next to him. "Just take it easy now, you're alright."

"Jack?" Mac's voice was hoarse, mouth dry. "Why's it so bright?"

"It ain't bright, hoss. I got the curtains in here closed and everythin'. You're just hungover." He carefully tipped an open water bottle to Mac's lips and let him take a drink. It felt amazing on his throat but he instantly regretted the decision when it hit his stomach. 

"Easy," Jack pressed a cool hand to his forehead, running his fingers through Mac's hair. "You're alright. Just gotta take it slow."

"The hell'd you let me drink?" He asked when he felt like he could open his mouth without bringing the water, and who knows what else, right back up. Mac wasn't a lightweight when it came to drinking. He didn't enjoy being drunk, his mind was too difficult to wrangle sober some days, but he could hold his own. He hadn't felt as awful as he did at that moment, though, since the night Bozer had flown out to MIT and Frankie and Smitty took them out drinking to celebrate Mac's twenty-first birthday.

"This one ain't on me," Jack smiled down at him sadly. "But I guess if I'd been watchin' a little closer it coulda been avoided."

Hearing the guilt in his partner's voice, Mac cracked one eye open just enough to look at Jack. "What happened?" 

"You went off and decided to play hero, is what happened." Jack sighed. "They said you probably wouldn't remember any of it. Start by tellin' me what you do recall?"

Mac shook his head slowly, careful not to move enough to displace Jack's comforting hand. "Nothing. Driving to work?" 

"Well, that was a solid…” Jack looked at his watch. “Thirty-two hours ago, but sure. Let's take it from there."

"A case," Mac continued, frowning. "Here in LA. Downtown. A club. Riley undercover." Her name was a trigger. "Riley." He scrambled to get enough strength in his arms to push himself up. 

"Easy there, champ," Jack easily pushed him back down from his elbows, letting him collapse back into his bed. "Easy. She's fine. Riley's fine, I promise. Safe and sound. Not so much as a scratch on her, thanks to you." 

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jack, there was nobody he trusted more, but he had to be certain. “You’re sure?” 

“Absolutely. She’s good. Wishin’ you’d thought of a better plan than drugging yourself to keep her cover, but she’s good.”

“Oh,” Mac closed his eyes again, faded memories of that night creeping into his mind. “Yeah. I did do that, huh?” 

“Yup,” Jack agreed. “Nearly gave me a heart attack too. And at the young age of… well, we’re talkin’ about you here, not me.” 

That got Mac to smile. “Not that I regret that I did it, but I feel awful.” 

“Yeah,” Jack went back to carding a hand through Mac’s hair. “Laurel said you’d be feelin’ pretty rough when you woke up.”

“Laurel?” 

“Guess you don’t remember our little trip over to Phoenix Med?” Jack asked.

“Not at all,” Mac admitted. “We caught the guy, right? And the bartender?” 

“Sure did,” Jack nodded. “It’ll be a long time before either of ‘em see the light of day through anything other than a jail cell. Creep was using the drugs as leverage. Get the girl helpless, feelin’ like you do now, and tell her that he’s got a video of her doin’ somethin’ she wouldn’t want getting out. Ready to send it to her boss or family. He’ll only get rid of the evidence if she agrees to do his dirty work for him.” 

“Creep,” Mac agreed, face drawing into a wince as he tried to stretch out beneath his blanket. “Ouch.” 

“We can make a quick run over to Medical,” Jack suggested. “Get you somethin’ a little stronger than the over-the-counter stuff they told me to give you. Maybe hook you up to one of those rich-people IV hangover cure thingys you always hear ‘em bragging about?” 

“Those are basically just a cocktail of B-12 and fluids,” Mac shook his head, immediately stopping when it made the room spin faster. “I’ll be fine. Rather stay here where it’s comfy.” 

“You look pretty bad, pal,” Jack pressed on. “If they didn’t make you stay last night they won’t keep you now. Just get you back to feelin’ like yourself a little sooner.”

“Not moving,” Mac insisted again and Jack gave in. 

“Think you can drink some Gatorade for me then?” Jack nodded towards the bottles on the nightstand. 

Mac shook his head, drawing a face at the mere thought. “Won’t be able to keep it down.” 

“Water then,” Jack twisted the lid off for him before helping Mac sit up enough to drink. “You gotta get somethin’ in ya.” Mac managed to down half the bottle and a couple Ibuprofin before exhaustion caught up with him and he collapsed back into bed. “Alright,” Jack smiled down at him. “Get some more rest. Just sleep it off, I gotcha.” 

“Everything hurts,” Mac mumbled as he rolled over and buried his face in the darkness between his pillow and Jack’s thigh. 

“I’m sure it does,” Jack rubbed a gentle hand across Mac’s back. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.” 

“What if I don’t?” Mac asked. It was clear from his voice that he was already closer to sleep than he was awake. 

“Then I’ll be right here and we’ll get through it,” Jack answered easily. 

“We should go fishing,” Mac murmured suddenly, long after Jack had already thought he had passed out. 

“I think we should probably get you back on your feet before we ask for a few days off to head up to the cabin.” Jack grinned. “Where’d that idea come from anyhow?” 

“Gramps said it’s been too long,” Mac’s voice was so soft Jack had to struggle to understand what he was saying. “Since we’ve come to visit him.” 

Jack blinked, processing his partner’s words. Mac was usually so clinical, never disrespectful of people, like Jack, who believed in afterlives and guardian angels and loved ones keeping watch, but he never believed it himself. “You talkin’ to your granddad?”

Mac nodded, pressing his face closer into Jack’s denim-clad leg. “He’s here. Don’t have to miss him now.” 

“Tell you what,” Jack said softly, resuming running a hand over the muscles in Mac’s back that were finally beginning to relax. “You enjoy your visit. Make sure to tell him thanks from me, for takin’ care of you wherever y’all are over there, okay? Make sure he knows I’ve got your back when you do come back ‘round though. He don’t get to keep you just yet.” 

“He knows,” Mac smiled. “He loves you too.” 

Mac sleeps for hours. Eventually, Jack shifted to lean against the headboard, afraid to move too much and break the peaceful spell Mac had fallen under. As he kept a hand on his friend’s back, feeling the constant rise and fall of his breath, he couldn’t help but think back to that mission in Mexico with James. How he had implied that every decision Mac had ever made had really come down from his hand, even choosing Jack as his son’s overwatch all those years ago. Maybe, Jack thought, it hadn’t been James pulling the strings at all, but another man. An overwatch just the same, passing down the torch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no intention of this getting so emotional, it just did. I knew I wanted the hallucination chapter to be Mac and his grandfather and then once I got the idea of HIM being the one setting all the events of Mac’s life into motion instead of James it just wrote itself. Basically this is just me projecting my James hate into this story and making sure he doesn’t get credit for Mac and Jack becoming Mac and Jack.


	23. Bleeding Out

As much as Mac loves his job, the days when Phoenix actually gets to act out their cover as a Think Tank are some of his favorites. Riley is working on a new surveillance system and Jack is running tac sims with a group of new recruits, so it’s just Mac and Bozer in the lab. Jack has been bugging him for years to come up with an alternative to Kevlar, one that Mac would actually consider wearing on missions, and he and Bozer had decided to give it a go. 

It was quiet, just the two of them chatting and laughing as they worked until Mac noticed that one of the cooling fans on the machine they were using wasn’t working. He pointed it out to Bozer who just laughed, shaking his head and continuing working, knowing that Mac was unable to leave a problem unsolved. 

Mac pried the casing off the machine back with his knife. “I think one of the wires shorted out,” he said. “Easy fix.” 

“Dude, there’s like, three other fans.” Bozer rolled his eyes. “And the thing’s running fine. Just leave it.”

“Nah,” Mac reached one hand into the mess of circuitry and wires. “It’ll just take a second.” 

He didn’t get the chance to even find the problem, not really. All it took was one nudge and the shorted wire sparked back to life. He regretted not listening to Bozer, though, when he realized that the hand that wasn’t buried in the inner workings of the machine was resting too close to the fan blades that jolted back to life with a whirl. Bozer looked up at the sound of blood splattering onto the wall across from him. 

“Mac!” He screeched, tools clattering, long forgotten, to the lab table as he ran over expecting the worst. His relief upon seeing that his friend still had both his hands was shortlived as he watched the blood steadily dripping down Mac’s arm as he tried to apply pressure to the gash in his hand. 

“I’m fine,” he said, looking up at Bozer, though his skin was growing significantly paler against his white lab coat. 

“This is the exact opposite of fine,” Bozer pulled a lab stool over and pushed Mac into it before running to the sink and grabbing a wad of paper towels. 

“Find me a rag, maybe more than one,” Mac instructed as his trembling fingers took the paper towels from Bozer’s equally shaking hand. “It’s just gonna bleed right through these. And then go get Jack.” 

“Jack?” Bozer exclaimed as he dug through drawers and cabinets until he found an unopened package of rags. “You’re sitting here bleeding out and you want me to go get Jack? What’s he gonna do? Huh? You don’t need Jack, you need an ambulance. Medical professionals. And, and, I don’t know, man, surgery? Blood? Yeah, yeah, blood. Cause you’re losing a lot…” 

“Boze!” Mac’s voice finally broke through his panicked spiral. “Stop. Reach me that,” He nodded towards the rags in Bozer’s hand “And go get Jack.” 

A closer look at Mac’s hand as he handed over the rags and Bozer was queasy enough to agree that Jack was much better equipped to handle the situation than he was. “Okay, okay. Going to find Jack. Uh, pressure, right? Keep pressure on that?” 

Mac nodded as Bozer sprinted out of the room. He hadn’t been gone more than a few seconds when he came barreling back into the lab, catching himself on the doorframe. “And stay awake.” 

He heard their footsteps as soon as the elevator hit the floor. Bozer’s frantic, slapping against the tiles, and Jack’s heavy boots, rhythmic but hurried. 

“What’d I tell y’all about that damn robot?” Jack called as soon as he pushed through the door, taking in the bloody scene around him. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

“Sparky had nothing to do with it,” Mac managed a weak smile, “This one was all my fault.” 

“Hey, pal,” Jack dropped to his knees in front of Mac, ignoring the blood seeping through his jeans from the puddle on the floor, any trace of anger instantly gone from his voice. He reached up a hand and pressed it against Mac’s neck, offering comfort and getting a reading on his pulse in one practiced move. “How we doin’?” 

“Been better,” Mac sighed. “Feel kinda stupid.” 

“We can worry about that once we figure out a way to keep all this blood inside you where it belongs, alright?” He carefully wrapped his hands around Mac’s. “Can I see?” 

“Yeah, just, careful?”

Jack nodded. “I won’t hurt ya.” 

“No, that’s not,” Mac closed his eyes, just for a moment, before sending a nervous look Bozer’s way. The last thing he wanted to do was increase his friend’s panic. “It’s still bleeding. A lot.” 

Jack easily read between the lines, picking up on Mac’s concern. “Hey, Boze?” He called over his shoulder “Drop a call in to Med for me, kay? Let ‘em know I’m bringin’ a bleed in.” 

He waited until he heard Bozer’s voice relaying information to the front desk of Phoenix Med, just a few floors above, before carefully peeling back the blood-soaked rag Mac had wrapped tightly around his palm. A garish display of blood instantly spurted up from the wound and Jack hurried to wrap a fresh towel around it. “Okay, yup, that’s arterial spray. You never do things halfway, do ya kid?” 

“I don’t know,” Mac managed a smile. “Did a pretty bad job of fixing that fan back there.” 

Jack huffed a laugh. “Yeah, next time unplug the thing before you go pokin’ around its insides, okay?” He tore a stip off another rag from the quickly dwindling pile on the table beside Mac and moved Mac’s uninjured hand out of the way. “Eyes on me,” Jack instructed before pulling the strip of fabric tight and tying it off.

Stars danced in Mac’s line of vision for a brief moment but he managed not to pass entirely out. 

Jack’s hand found its way back to his neck again. “I said eyes on me,” He smiled. “Not floatin’ around wherever you went just now. You alright?”

Mac nodded, not trusting his voice just yet. 

“Here,” Jack took yet another cloth and began wiping the worst of the blood from Mac’s good arm. He carefully positioned it on his forearm, a few inches above his wrist. “Start puttin’ pressure there now, try not to let any more blood escape out that hand then we have to.” He raised both hands up to rest near Mac’s shoulder. “Think you can make it up to Medical?” 

“Yeah, I can walk,” Mac assured, moving to stand. 

He would have faceplanted had Jack not been there, ready and expecting it. “Easy,” He carefully helped Mac balance on his wobbly, unlocked knees. “We good?” 

Mac nodded, leaning heavily on Jack, as he took a hesitant step forward. 

“Are you sure he’s okay to walk like that?” Bozer’s voice called from the corner of the lab he had retreated back into. “He don’t look all too steady.” 

“He’s alright,” Jack promised with a smile as he helped Mac out into the hallway. “I got him.”


	24. Secret Injury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's go back to those early DXS days for this one...

It was a testament to just how much Jack was hurting, that he didn’t notice Mac standing in the doorway.

“So what, you just… weren’t gonna tell me?” He had a brief moment of satisfaction when Jack jolted at his words, nearly bringing himself clear off the exam table, but it quickly faded when Mac saw the flash of pain the movement caused cross his partner’s face.

“Not ‘till after I knew nothin’ was wrong,” Jack admitted, running a hand over his face, knowing he had been caught.

“How bad?” Mac turned his attention to Laurel, who had paused her final check of Jack’s broken ribs, as he made his way into the private exam room, shutting the door behind him.

“Three broken, severe bruising, nothing too bad.” She relayed the information. “Perfect timing, actually. I’m getting ready to discharge him now.”

Jack shot her a suspicious glare. “What’d you do, rat me out?”

Laurel held up her hands in innocence as Mac rolled his eyes. “Nobody had to tell me, Jack. You said they got in a few good kicks, you were walking like it hurt, but you didn’t say it was Medical bad. I thought you went home to dig out a bag of frozen peas and crash for the night. Imagine my surprise when I went out to the parking garage and found the Shelby still there.”

“Knew I shoulda moved her,” Jack muttered under his breath.

“Oh no,” Mac automatically corrected. “Doing a better job of keeping your cover isn’t the solution here. Talking to your partner and actually telling him when something’s wrong, letting him help you? That’s the answer you’re searching for.”

“I’m fine,” Jack promised, reaching around Laurel to grab his shirt off the table she had put it on at the beginning of the exam. “She said so herself, gettin’ ready to send me home.”

“Just, don’t,” Mac put a resisting hand on his shoulder before turning back to Laurel. “He’s really okay?”

“He was slightly concerned that some of those, how did you put it? Good kicks? Landed a little too close to a kidney but all the scans came back clear. He’s going to be hurting for a few days, I’ve put him off work the rest of the week, but he’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

She shrugged. “As sure as I can be. If anything gets worse or something suspicious comes up drag him back in and we’ll take a closer look.”

“See? I got hurt, went and got checked out without causin’ anyone no unnecessary stress, and now I can go home.” Jack’s smile was quickly cut off by Mac’s glare and crossed arms.

“You don’t get to just run around hiding secret injuries from the rest of the team,” Mac scolded. “Especially not me. Do you know how mad you would have been if I tried to pull that on you?”

“If whatever you were hidin’ wasn’t serious enough to kill you I probably would’ve done it myself,” Jack admitted. “But that’s the rule with you. You have to tell me.”

“Laurel? Is there a dictionary around here somewhere?” Mac asked, angry eyes never looking away from Jack. “Apparently Jack doesn’t understand the definition of a hypocrite.”

“Tell you what,” She handed Jack his coat and shooed him off the exam table. “You two argue about this on your way home. Not here.”

Mac stormed his way to the elevator without looking back to see if Jack was following.

“It is different,” Jack tried again, gentler, once the doors closed around them with a soft hiss. “My job’s to watch your back. To take care of you. I have to know when somethin’s wrong.”

“It goes both ways,” Mac reached up to run both hands through his hair in frustration. “You have to trust me enough to step up and take care of you if I need to.”

“You think trustin’ you is the issue?” Jack laughed, bracing an arm against his ribs. “Buddy, there’s no one out there I trust more. You don’t think I’d love to take full advantage of this? Hell, it’s me we’re talkin’ about here. In case you haven’t noticed I’m about as dramatic as they come. I should be camped out on your couch with a little bell, ringin’ it all the time to make you bring me whatever I want, complainin’ and driving you up the wall, milkin’ a few cracked ribs for all I can get. But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Cause unless it’s bad, and I mean real bad, like, Cairo bad? Mac, I can’t burden you with that. You can’t go out, doin’ your thing and saving the world if you don’t have complete faith that I’ve got your back.” Jack stared into the reflective surface of the elevator doors and met Mac’s eyes. “I trust you to take care of the big problems and you trust me to handle anything that can get in your way. That’s how we work. And how are you supposed to trust me to do that if I ask you to drop everything and take care of me when I get somethin’ so minor it don’t even land me an overnight stay in Medical?”

He caught a glimpse of Mac’s emotions softening just as the elevator doors parted, revealing the nearly empty parking garage. In their usual spots, sat Jack’s Shelby and Mac’s Jeep, side by side. “What if I want to?” He asked quietly.

“You wanna wait around on me hand and foot?” Jack teased. “Not gonna lie, man, that’s a little creepy.”

“No,” Mac smiled. “But I want to know you’re alright. And if you need me to, then sure.” Because you’d do it for me.”

“I still ain’t gonna come runnin’ to you every time I get a papercut,” Jack said as they made their way over to the cars. “But I get where you’re comin’ from, so how about this? I agree to tell you if I get banged up and let you help out, but only if it’s bad enough I need a hospital visit to get patched up.”

Mac pondered it for a moment. “Deal,” He decided. “As long as you don’t skip out on a pit stop in Medical if you really need it just cause you’re being stubborn.”

“I can agree to that,” Jack nodded, checking to make sure his Shelby’s doors were locked before slowly climbing up into the passenger seat of the Jeep with a wince. “And since we just left Medical, I guess you’re officially on shift to cater to my every need?”

“Guess so,” Mac said with a laugh as he turned the ignition.

Jack pulled his phone from his pocket. “You know what? I bet there’s an app for bell sounds… Oh! Would ya lookie there? There is. You shake it just like a real bell and everything. You know what, Mac? This might not be such a bad arrangement after all.”


	25. Humiliation

Rain in LA was a rare occurrence. That, combined with how frequently working for Phoenix took them away to other corners of the world, meant that the chances of them actually being home during one of the occasional storms were even lower. Mac honestly couldn’t even remember the last time he had been home when one of the downpours hit. When the clouds plowed their way across the hills and took the center-stage away from that famed SoCal sunshine. The streets ran like rivers, drains overflowing from the sudden onslaught, and lightning lit up the sky brighter than any spotlight. 

Mac could handle all that. It was the thunder, as humiliating as it was to admit, that got to him.

Another loud clap echoed through the empty house and Mac winced. It was almost distracting enough for him to miss the sound of his front door slamming closed. “Mac?” A familiar voice called down the hall. 

“In here,” Mac answered, smiling as he listened to Jack kick off his boots before making his way towards the kitchen, shaking water droplets from his hair the entire way. 

He stopped suddenly, staring, and it took Mac a moment to understand his partner’s confusion. Jack found his voice first. “Whacha doin?” 

It was a little late to hide the fact that he was sitting on top of his kitchen counter, barefooted and in a pair of old grey sweatpants that had originally belonged to Jack, with his knees drawn up to his chest. Embarrassed, he wrapped his arms tighter around his legs, pulling them close enough to his chest that he could rest his cheek on them, and admitted with a sheepish grin. “It’s loud. Kept making the floor shake.” 

“You’re kinda adorable,” Jack reached out to ruffle Mac’s hair as he threw his soaked jacket across one of the bar stools and headed towards the fridge. “You know that?” 

“Shut up,” The familiar banter relaxed him enough to move, dangling his legs over the side of the counter, still not touching the floor. “You come all this way in the storm just to make fun of me?”

They both flinched at the next sudden rumble of thunder. Jack’s every muscle tensed and he moved, instinctually, to position himself between Mac and the kitchen window. Eventually, he managed to focus on the sheets of rain streaming down the glass long enough to override his panic and retrieve the beers he had been hunting for, pretending like nothing had happened. 

“Or did you just not wanna be by yourself?” Mac continued, voice falling just short of teasing, once his heart left his throat and he was able to talk again. 

“Nah,” Jack forced a smile and popped the caps off both bottles using only the countertop and a well-practiced hit from the heel of his hand. “I remembered Bozer goin’ on and on about him and Leanna gettin’ away for the weekend and the weatherman said this one’s settin’ in for the long haul. Thought you might not wanna be here by yourself if it’s gonna keep this up all night.” 

“Thanks,” Mac raised his bottle towards Jack before taking a drink. “You didn’t have to though.” 

“Too bad,” Jack took a long swig from his own bottle. “Cause I ain’t drivin’ through that storm again to get back home. You’re stuck with me. ‘Sides, you think the floors shake here? Man, you should feel ‘em rattle in that apartment of mine.” He shuddered. 

The next one was louder. They both jumped and Mac had to set his drink down beside him, afraid that his shaking hands would drop it. After a long pause that was only soundtracked by their breaths and the rain pounding on the roof, Mac ran his hands up and down his thighs nervously before he couldn’t take the tense silence any longer. “It didn’t always bother me. Storms? The thunder? When I was a kid I loved it. Couldn’t wait for one to roll through. Remember that old treehouse?” 

Jack nodded.

“The only time Gramps didn’t want me and Boze camping out all night in it was when it was storming but those were the best nights. It was so loud, not muffled by anything but that leaky old piece of tin we hauled up there and called a roof.” Mac huffed an embarrassed laugh. “Now just thinking about it makes me cringe.” 

“They never bothered me neither,” Jack admitted. “We’d get some crazy ones down home. Ranch that big, that much property, you could watch the lightnin’ hit ground thirty miles away in any direction. Never phased me. Didn’t even know I brought that particular baggage back with me till I made it stateside after my first tour. One thunderclap sent me straight into a panic attack and I spent the rest of that night sittin’ on the floor of the shower tryin’ to drown out the sound with even more water.”

“Does it ever get easier?” Mac asked, voice so quiet it was barely audible over the rain. 

“I wish I could tell you yes, pal.” Jack sighed. “I really do. But if it does, I don’t know, I guess it just hasn’t happened to me yet. But tell ya what. Why don’t we go pile up on that couch, crank the volume on the tv up as far as it’ll go, and marathon any movie we can think of with a ton of explosions in it. I bet that brain of yours would love comin’ up with a definitive ranking system for ‘em.”

“Isn’t that a little counterproductive?” Mac laughed. “Being freaked out by thunder because it sounds like explosives and fixing it by watching videos of actual explosions?” 

“Hell if I know,” Jack shrugged as he began digging through the snack cabinet for a bag of popcorn. “Can’t make us any jumpier than we already are. And after so long maybe we won’t be able to tell the movie sounds from the real-life ones.”

“Worth a shot,” Mac agreed, spinning around and using his spot on the counter to easily reach a large bowl from the cabinet above him. “What do you wanna start with?” 

“I don’t care, man. There’s always my man McClane. Then we got Independence Day, Transformers, The A-Team, any of the Rambos, it’s basically a neverending list. Mad Max, Armageddon...” 

The storm ended early the next morning, and the sun pushed its way through any remaining clouds to shine into Mac’s living room, revealing a coffee table littered with empty beer bottles and soda cans, crumpled chip bags, and candy wrappers. There was popcorn strewn all about, the result of a fight breaking out after Jack had attempted to see just how many unpopped kernels he could land in Mac’s hair before the younger man noticed. The television screen still had the movie queue pulled up, waiting for their next selection, but the two men were fast asleep on either side of the couch, with a half-finished chart tracking the quality of each explosion they had watched throughout the night between them.


	26. Abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, remember alllllllll the way back to Chapter 6? When every single comment y’all left was asking how I could be evil enough to end that chapter where I did? And I promised that it was on my list of ones to go back and add to someday? Welcome to someday!

“You think they’re still looking for us?” Mac asked, voice soft in the dark night. He was supposed to be sleeping, a fact Jack had been reminding him of every time he spoke. His head was pillowed on Jack’s thigh and he had found a position on the cold dirt floor that was almost comfortable, or at least, it would have been if he hadn’t been in too much pain to even consider relaxing, let alone actually falling asleep. 

“Course they are,” Jack promised. “You watch and see, help’ll be here any minute now.” He carefully began running a hand through Mac’s dirty hair. The other was resting on the ground at his side, hanging limply from an equally damaged arm. Broken, dislocated, possible nerve damage, Jack wasn’t sure of the actual diagnosis, possibly all of the above and then some, it didn’t matter. His own misery was the least of his worries. “You’re supposed to be sleepin’.” 

“Can’t sleep.” 

“Sure you can. You’ve gotta be exhausted, pal, they ran you through the wringer today.” Jack leaned his head, ignoring the ache in his neck, to look through the tiny window high up on the far wall. It was well past midnight, according to the moon’s position in the sky. Only a few hours of peace left until their hellish nightmare began again. “Get some rest.” 

“They’ll be coming for you in a few hours,” Mac’s voice was bitter as he read Jack’s thoughts as easily as if he had spoken the words aloud. “I can sleep then.” 

It wasn’t that Jack had forgotten, forgetting was a luxury they weren’t allowed, but those days were easier. When it was just him and their captors and whatever pain they decided to experiment with. Nothing they had come up with yet had been able to hold a candle to the misery of the days they took Mac. “You could,” Jack agreed. “But I know you won’t. And depending on what kinda shape I’m in when they drag me back here I may not be able to remind you that you’re not gonna heal unless you rest.” 

“Don’t talk like that,” Mac chided, though he knew it was no use. His harsh insistance triggered another round of harsh coughing. They both could tell it was getting worse. What had started out as simply leftover water in his lungs was turning into something much more dangerous. “And I think I’m well past the point where a good night’s sleep is all it’s gonna take to fix me up this time around.” 

Jack managed a smile, praying that the pale moonlight wouldn’t show that it didn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “Hey, now, if I can’t be a pessimist you can’t either.” 

“We’ve only been with them for a year,” Mac continued a few breaths later, picking up on the original conversation Jack had hoped he had forgotten. “DXS? I mean, I know our numbers have been pretty good but it’s not like we’re that big of an asset. We’re just two agents. Thornton’s risking a lot more than that if she sends an entire rescue op in after us. Maybe she decided…” 

“Patty didn’t decide anyting of the sort. She wouldn’t just up and abandon us like that.” Jack interrupted his partner’s ramblings which were turning into a destructive spiral. “She knows I’d find a way to survive just so I could kick her ass if she tried.” 

His words worked, bringing the slightest hint of a grin to Mac’s lips. “Like you’d ever lay a hand on a woman. ‘Sides, I think she kinda scares you.”

“Oh, trust me, pal,” Jack shot him a wink. “I’ve laid more than just a hand on many, if you catch my drift. I just haven’t got the chance to work my magic on Patty yet.”

“Eww, Jack,” Mac laughed, sending him into another coughing fit. “Talk about an image I didn’t need to be burned into my brain.” 

“Hey, now,” Jack held up his hands in defense. “You were the one who started talkin’ about her. We can talk about all those heart-eyes Nikki’s been sendin’ you the past few weeks if you’d rather move on from my romantic endeavors to yours?” 

“Nothing to talk about,” Mac assured, but Jack was pretty sure if there was a patch of skin on his young friend’s face that wasn’t already colored with bruises, blood, or the beginnings of a fever flush, he would have been blushing. “You really think they’re coming for us?” 

“I know it.” 

Jack had never been a believer in the power of speaking things into existence, but when the sound of gunshots rang out through the still of the morning just a few hours later, jolting both of them out of the sleep neither hadn’t intended on slipping into, he became a believer. 

“Is that?” Mac’s whisper was hesitant as if he were afraid to speak the words and shatter the hope that had suddenly formed in his chest. 

“Tac team,” Jack pressed a finger to his lips. “Stay still, we made it this far, I don’t want someone decidin’ to take us out now just for spite.” 

Mac nodded, scrambling up to sitting beside Jack, eyes locked intently on the door in front of them. They shared a panicked glance when they heard footsteps making their way down the corridor leading to their cell. A swarm of Phoenix tac members suddenly flooded the space around their door, yelling requests for their identification codes to ensure they were who they were sent to retrieve. Jack reached out a closed hand for Mac to bump, grinning at their rescue team. “Took y’all long enough.”


	27. Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the Sandbox...

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” Mac’s voice can be heard throughout every inch of the infirmary, berating Jack before he even finds his Overwatch. “Why would you do that? Why would you let them take you?”

“Shhh,” Jack whispers when he hears the metallic clang of the curtain creating some vague illusion of privacy being shoved aside. Mac’s boots tromp across the floor. “Head hurts.”

“Probably because two hours ago you were being held hostage by terrorists!” Mac began pacing the length of the cramped room. “Three days, Jack! They had you for three days.”

“I’m well aware, thanks,” Jack sighed, dropping a bruised forearm across his eyes. “I think your bedside manner needs some serious work if all you’re gonna do here is yell at me.”

Mac opened his mouth to argue until he realized that the older man’s teasing, while infuriatingly frustrating, wasn’t technically wrong. “What happened?” Mac asked, closing his eyes for a moment, trying to keep the fear disguised as anger from seeping into his voice. “One minute you were ranting about the Cowboy’s starting lineup and then you just disappeared from comms.”

_They wanted you. _“They wanted information,” Jack answered after a few moments of tense silence. “And if they took me they would be too busy tryin' to get that information to take anyone else.”

“You were long gone when I made it up to your lookout,” Mac continued. “I thought you might have left me a trail, a sign, something…”

“I didn’t have time, kid,” Jack sighed. The last thing he had wanted to do was draw any more attention to the genius entrusted in his care. It hadn’t been Jack they wanted, not originally. They had their sights set on the blonde bomb tech undoing their handiwork faster than any soldier they had ever seen. Had hoped to bring him in, not his guard dog, and flip him onto their side. It had been a miracle Jack had been able to convince them that he, having been former CIA, had information infinitely more valuable than the greatest bomb Mac could ever make. Him for Mac? It hadn’t ever been a question. “Didn’t have time.”

“Are you okay?” Mac carefully sat down at the foot of Jack’s bed.

“Do I look okay?”

“You look like hell,” Mac admitted, staring down at his hands in his lap. “Better than you did in that video they sent though. I’m sorry it took so long to get you out.”

“Three days?” Jack shrugged. “Hardly nothin’.” He moved his arm away from his face and opened his swollen, bruised eyes as far as they would go. “You saw that ransom vid?”

Mac nodded. “Yeah, they… they called me in to see if I recognized the house they were holding you in. Thought maybe we’d covered it in one of our rounds from that area.”

“Well, now I’m sorry,” Jack had been hoping, even as the video was being filmed, that Mac wouldn’t have to see him in that condition. Beaten and bloody, barely strong enough to hold his head facing the general direction of the camera, let alone keep up his trademark run of constant sarcastic jokes. He hadn’t wanted Mac to see that video any more than he had wanted him to be the one taken.

“I didn’t recognize it,” Mac continued, guilty.

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up over that,” Jack cut in. “I didn’t know the place either. There was nothin’ you coulda done.”

Mac nodded, still not able to meet Jack’s eyes. “What did they want?” He asked softly a few moments later.

_You. They wanted you. But I would have let ‘em kill me first._ “Told ya,” Jack shifted, trying to find a position that didn’t irritate his bruises. “Info. They knew I had it, thought they could beat me into sharing. When they realized just how stupid that idea was they put a ransom out. Figured they might as well try to get some money for all their hard work.”

“But you’re gonna be okay?”

For the briefest of moments, Jack didn’t see the soldier sitting beside him, the young man with twenty-three years of life experience already under his belt. Instead, it was a floppy-haired little kid watching his mom slowly wither away in a hospital bed all too similar to the ones in the infirmary tent. “Yeah, kid,” Jack promised. “I’m gonna be just fine. Another day, maybe two, stuck in here then a couple more off-duty. I’ll be back on rotation by the start of next week.”

“Really?” Mac finally looked up to meet Jack’s eyes. “That’s it?”

“Really,” Jack forced a grin, ignoring the pull on his split lip. “It’s gonna take more than one little hostage situation to break up this dynamic duo. I’m like a cat. Always land on my feet.”

“That’s not actually true,” Mac began, fully prepared to begin one of the rants that Jack didn’t find nearly as annoying as he did back at the beginning of their partnership.

“Hush,” Jack held up a protesting finger. “Let me finish. “And on the rare occasion that I don’t, at least I’ve still got nine lives.”

“That’s,” Mac closed his eyes as if he were the one in pain. “That’s even less true.” Mac didn’t notice Jack’s teasing smile. He just kept talking, falling even deeper into his partner’s plan.

They were going to be just fine.


	28. Beaten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re just joining me on this ride, I highly recommend reading Chapter 14 before this one. If you've been with me all along and were one of the ones who hated how abruptly I ended that Murdoc chapter, here's some closure.

Mac smile lasted only a second until the pain took over and he sunk further into his chair. 

“Of course I came for you pal,” Jack reached out a hand but hesitated, unsure of where, if anywhere, was safe to touch. He settled on pulling a tac knife from his belt and sawing through the ropes holding Mac’s bloody wrists to the armrests. “You just hang in there for me, okay? I’m here.” 

“You catch him?” Mac asked, “Murdoc?” 

“Naw, kid, he’s long gone,” Jack threw the ropes to the ground and rested a careful hand against the side of Mac’s neck, unable to wait any longer to feel proof that his friend was alive. “But I will.” 

Jack’s cell phone ringing startled both of them, sending Mac wincing as the flinch pulled on numerous injuries. “I got him, Matty,” Jack answered. “He’s beaten within an inch of his life, but I got him.” 

“Medical’s on their way,” Jack assured after a few more seconds talking to Matty, putting his phone back in his pocket. “We just gotta hang in till they get here, alright?” 

Mac dropped his head against the back of the chair, rolling it side to side. “Want out.” 

“Real soon,” Jack tried, placating and soft, and he risked resting a comforting hand on Mac’s knee. “I don’t even know where’s safe to touch you right now, Mac. I can’t just let you walk up those stairs till we see what all he did to you.”

“Don’t think I could make it if I tried,” Mac admitted, letting his pain-filled blue eyes drop closed once again. “Help me? Want out of here, Jack. Please.” 

“Okay, okay,” Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, scanning the room, searching for a better option. “Tell you what? I’ll get you out of that chair, alright? Get you a change of scenery at least, maybe a little comfier, but I ain’t movin’ you any more than I have too.” 

“Kay,” Mac agreed, the relief in the one syllable nearly palpable.

Jack took a closer look at the injuries marring his partner’s skin, injuries that he had been trying to avoid, the mere sight of them making him nauseous. There was the hand with the fingers Jack had watched Murdoc break. The other hand was missing every fingernail. A line of cuts, even and methodically placed, worked their way up each arm until they turned into a series of burns running down his chest, mingling with the bruising from broken ribs. “I don’t even know where to begin,” Jack mumbled to himself, eventually deciding that to just slip one hand behind Mac’s shoulders and the other beneath his knees and draw him up into his chest. 

Mac still cried out, despite how carefully Jack was moving him, as broken bones began grinding together and pressure irritated wounds. “I gotcha,” Jack whispered, lips brushing against sweaty blonde hair. “Easy, Mac. You’re okay. Jack’s gotcha. You’re safe now.”

Jack slowly moved around the room, dropping down to sitting in the corner with a clear view of the doorway, carefully shifting the young man in his arms until he was situated on his lap with his head resting on Jack’s chest. He wasn’t even sure what he was saying at that point, just keeping up a steady string of pointless rambling, giving Mac something to focus on, to latch on to. 

The sound that escaped Mac’s lips was one of sheer pain and terror, that of a man reaching the limits of what all he can endure, when the Medical team pushed the door at the top of the stairway open with a bang. 

“Shh, it’s not him,” Jack drew Mac’s shaking form even closer, risking rubbing a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. “It’s just help. I promise, bud, he ain’t gonna touch you ever again. It’s only a couple paramedics, they gotta take a look at you before we get the rest of the way outta here.” 

“Agent MacGyver?” One asked, dropping to his knees beside the two of them. Mac just buried his face deeper into the familiar safety of Jack’s chest. 

“I think you’re just gonna have to work around me for the time being,” Jack said softly. “He’s still pretty rattled.” 

“MacGyver?” He tried again. “Judging by the severity of the injuries I can see, I don’t feel comfortable allowing you to walk out of here. We’re going to bring a stretcher to load you onto, alright? Take you to get some help?” 

Mac shook his head, protesting, scrambling with broken and bloodied hands to cling to Jack’s coat. 

“Hey, now,” Jack brushed a hand over matted hair. “Stop that, you’re fine. Just calm down, okay? You’re gonna hurt yourself worse. Nobody’s takin’ you away from me.” He looked over at the medic. “It alright if I just carry him out?” 

“Considering the situation?” He nodded. “I’m all for avoiding more trauma. Just take it slow and try not to move him any more than you have to.”

“Alright, bud,” Jack carefully stood up, shifting Mac in his arms until he had a more stable grip. “We’re gonna get you all patched up, okay? Feelin’ better.” He stopped at the top of the stairs, arms filled with the most precious cargo, taking one final look at the room beneath him, thinking how it had really only been moments earlier that he was walking down those stairs, unsure of what he would find waiting for him. 

As usual, Mac read his mind, repeating the same words he had spoken when he saw his partner rushing in to save him. “Knew you’d come.”

“Always, kid,” Jack promised, turning his back on the room and all the demented memories it contained and choosing to move forward, leaving them behind. “Always.”


	29. Numb

"You sure you're alright?" Mac asked yet again. 

"M'fine," Jack assured, grinning up at Mac with drowsy eyes, pupils blown wide. "Feel great." 

"Yeah, well," Mac smiled back, his hand reaching out to give Jack's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "You just remember that in a few hours when the good stuff wears off." 

Jack’s face turned serious. “They call it that for a reason, don’t they?” 

“We do,” Laurel answered for him. There was a clank, metal on metal, and Mac followed her hands to the sound. Another nail, blood shining almost reflectively under the harsh fluorescent lighting of Phoenix Med, added to the ever-growing pile on the rolling cart. Six so far, that had been pulled from Jack’s flesh. “You know, it’s a good thing this mission didn’t take you far from home. You would’ve had a fun time trying to explain this one to a local ER.” 

“Got into a fight with a baddie with a nail gun,” Jack shrugged. “What’s there to explain?” 

“Yeah, it wasn’t a very fun car ride back here, that’s for sure,” Mac agreed with Laurel. “He was definitely hurting until those pain killers kicked in.” 

“Just one more, Jack,” She said, moving closer to the last nail, firmly embedded in Jack’s calf muscle. “And then we can let you get out of here. See what other kinds of trouble you can find to get into while the day’s still young.” 

“Hopefully none,” Jack replied, entirely missing the sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Think I’ve ‘bout had my fill for the day.” 

Mac just smiled, shaking his head fondly. He watched Jack tense up as Laurel began prodding the area around the final nail. “You okay? Is that hurting?” 

“Yeah, no, I’m good,” Jack nodded once, sitting up just enough to look at the protruding piece of metal and the blood welling around it for a moment before dropping back onto the exam table. “Still numb, kinda floaty. Just weird. That one really hurt, the one in my calf? Probably worse’n the rest of ‘em and I can’t feel it at all now.” 

“You’re welcome for that,” Laurel teased. “Stay still. And stop looking at what I’m doing over here. I didn’t manage to keep you conscious through all of this so far just to have you get all squeamish and pass out on the last one.” 

“Ain’t squeamish,” Jack muttered, but he closed his eyes just the same. 

A few moments later there was a clang as the last nail was dropped onto the tray. Jack’s face pulled into a near-wince. 

“You sure you’re not hurting?” Mac asked yet again. 

“Naw,” Jack shot him a lazy smirk. “Almost felt that one’s all.” 

“It was deep,” Laurel cut in, shooting Mac a knowing look. “If he was doing anything other than ‘almost’ feeling it? Trust me, we’d know.” 

“Stop worryin’,” Jack reprimanded. “I’m fine.” 

“How can you tell I’m worrying?” Mac argued. “You have your eyes closed. Aren’t even looking at me.” 

“I can tell. Just means I’m damn good at my job.” 

“If that job is being maimed by power tools turned into improvised weapons,” Laurel cut in, “Then I’d have to agree. Best I’ve seen all week.” 

“Job’s knowin’ when that brain of his goes from stupidly smart to just plain stupid,” Jack pried open one eye long enough to see Mac nervously twisting at one of the buttons on his flannel. “Like now. Tell him I’m good?” 

“He’s good,” Laurel repeated, voice losing any trace of a joke as her eyes softened and she smiled at Mac. “Really. A few more holes in him than are medically recommended, but I pieced him back together just fine. I’ll send him home with a round of antibiotics, just to be safe, but there’s no reason he won’t be back on his feet in a day or two.” 

“Home?” Jack asked, perking up significantly at the word.

“Depends on if the guy over there you just called stupid is too offended to agree to keep an eye on you for the next twelve hours.” Laurel teased. “We might just have to keep you here.” 

“He isn’t,” Jack assured, an ounce of doubt never crossing his mind, not for one second. “Offended. Are ya, pal?” 

Mac laughed. “Not sure how I could be.” 

“See?” Jack pushed himself up on his elbows for a moment, making sure he was steady enough to sit all the way up. He leaned over and pulled Mac towards him in a one-armed hug. “My boys got my back.”


	30. Recovery

Jack doesn't start singing along to the radio until he notices that Mac is awake. It had been on the entire trip, Jack alternating between classic rock stations any time the music would switch to an ad, but he had stayed quiet, letting Mac sleep. 

Sleep had come surprisingly easy to Mac, stretched out in the backseat of the Shelby. Jack's music combining with the familiar roar of the engine and the constant road noise worked better than any white noise machine could ever hope to. Or maybe it was the fact that he had spent three days in a hospital room, and an unfamiliar one at that, from a mission gone wrong in Arizona, and was suddenly enveloped in the leather seats and interior that smelled inherently like Jack. Leather and the slightest trace of gunpowder. Safety. Home. 

Mac wasn't intentionally feigning to still be asleep, but he was as comfortable as one could be with his head resting against the sun-warmed window with a heavy brace and post-surgical bandaging on his left leg, newly repaired ligaments in his knee propped up on a pillow. He was content to rest there, enjoying the peace, knowing he was in for a week, at least, of mother-henning from all his friends when he made it home. 

The final guitar riffs of a Zepplin song drew to a close, Jack humming along, but instead of beginning the next, Jack reached over and turned the radio down. "You ready to admit to bein' awake back there yet?" 

Mac smiled and straightened to be a little less slouched in his position against the door. "How'd you know I wasn't still asleep?" 

"You've been awake for Journey, Petty, and The Stones," Jack ticked each artist off on a finger as he drove one-handed. "At least. How long were you gonna keep it up?" 

"Till your singing got too annoying to stand listening to any more," Mac teased, craning his neck around to watch the road through the window behind him, searching for a mile marker. “How long till we make it home?”

“We really gonna play the ‘Are we there yet?’ game?” Jack rolled his eyes behind his yellow aviators. “You’re takin’ this whole kid in the backseat thing a little too far, kid.”

“It was a simple question, you don’t have to get all snarky, old man.”

The opening notes of the next song drifted through the nearly-muted speakers and Jack reached out to crank the music back up, hesitating at the last second. “Wait. You askin’ cause you’re bored or cause you’re hurting.

“Bored,” Mac assured. “Kinda. Mostly just wondering how much time I’ve got until all the hovering begins.”

“Does it really bother you that much?” Jack asked, trying to catch Mac’s eyes in the review mirror. “Havin’ everyone checkin’ in, takin’ care of you?”

Mac sighed. “No, I know it’s done with good intentions. And I’d appreciate it if I actually needed the help.”

“You just don’t think now’s one of those times when you’re gonna need help?”

“No, but I think everybody is going to take one look at this brace and the crutches and assume I’m entirely helpless.” Mac sent a pointed look through the back of Jack’s seat. “And I’m not.

Jack rubbed a hand across his face, choosing his next words carefully. “Nobody thinks you’re helpless, bud. We just know that you’re gonna be pretty miserable for the next little while and wanna make it as easy on you as we can. You got one heck of a recovery ahead of you and the last thing anyone wants is you getting hurt cause you’re too damn stubborn to ask for help.”

“So if I agree to ask for help if I actually need it...” Mac repeated slowly, searching Jack’s speech for a loophole. “You’ll drop the annoying hovering act?”

“After a week or so?” Jack shrugged. “Sure. Once I know you’re really alright. But you gotta understand that makin’ sure you’re safe is my job, Mac. It’s what I do. And I’m sorry if it gets on your nerves, or whatever, but I’d rather have you safe and sound, grumblin’ about how I won’t let you get your own drink from the fridge then let you do it on your own and have you end up falling and konking your head off the sink or somethin’.”

Mac understood where Jack was coming from, he truly did. It didn’t make his partner’s overprotectiveness any more appealing though. “Two days,” He offered. “I put up with it without complaint for two days and then you cut it out as long as I agree to tell you the second I need anything.”

“A week,” Jack countered. “Cause that’ll put us havin’ your followup with the docs at Phoenix Med on day six and I don’t feel right leaving you alone until they say it’s safe to.”

Mac pondered the offer for a few moments. “Four days, and I get to ask them about returning to work, even if it’s just consulting via satellite, and you’re not allowed to butt in and tell them it’s too early.”

“Six days, I’ll head out after your appointment, and I agree to try my best to only stay in full-out caretaker mode for the first three. The rest of the time I’m just hangin’ out, helpin’ only if you need me. And I’ll agree to thinkin’ about consulting so long as Medical clears you and you’re not out in the field until that knee’s healed up,” Jack agreed. “Final offer, take it or leave it.”

“Deal,” Mac agreed, satisfied. “I can live with that.”

“Take us home then,” Jack smiled, shifting around in his seat enough to reach a fist towards the back for Mac to bump as the Shelby drove past the Welcome to Los Angeles sign doing just that, taking them home.


	31. Embrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... we made it!

Jack Dalton had never been one to sleep in. Even as a teenager, growing up on the ranch, there was never a shortage of work that needed to be done. And even if you had the time to work later in the day you wanted to get it done early, to beat the sun. Then came the Army, and their rigorous adherence to a set time clock. The unconventional schedules that came with his work in Delta and covert ops quickly trained him to take advantage of any opportunity to sleep when it became available. Sure, there were bad nights, nightmares and bouts of insomnia, but he was typically asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

His bedroom was bathed in the first rays of early-morning sunlight when he woke up. When he rolled over to check the time on the alarm clock, he saw it. A tac knife, with a thick black handle and a serrated blade sticking straight up out of one of his pillows. “The hell?” Jack muttered to himself, instantly wide awake, he sat up and scanned the room, failing to find anything else out of place. He almost wrote the entire thing off, thinking maybe he had been having a nightmare and thought the pillow was a danger, a threat. Sleeping with a knife, and countless other weapons, within an arms reach was nothing new to him.

He didn’t even realize that the knife wasn’t one of his own until he climbed out of bed, rubbing at his eyes, trying to remember the events of the last few hours, and saw the initials carved into the hilt. H.H. It was concerning until he remembered that Halloween was only a week away.

“Not bad, y’all. Not bad.” He laughed the entire way to the shower, impressed at the prank one his kids had been able to pull on him.

** _~M~_ **

He nearly forgot about the whole thing. The knife was still sitting on his nightstand and the victimized pillow had gotten tossed out with that week’s trash. Nobody mentioned the prank so he didn’t bring it up either. No point in giving them credit if they weren’t invested enough to keep up the act.

Until his phone rang three days later.

Jack was the first one in the War Room, beating everyone there, even Matty. An incoming call, untraceable, from a blocked number, flashed on his screen. “Is this Jack Dalton? Agent with the Phoenix Foundation?” A male voice asked from the other end of the call.

“If you have that much information and a way to find this number you know damn well who it is you’re talkin’ to,” he answered hesitantly. “Who’s this?”

“Nice to speak to you again Agent, I just wish it were under better circumstances,” A sigh and Jack felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Something wasn’t right, he knew that voice. “Sir, this is Commander Byron Wheeler.”

“Commander Wheeler,” Jack repeated, collapsing down onto one of the sofas, memories of being stranded on that haunted island almost a year ago flashing through his mind. They had been sent in to recover the Commander and his team after the prisoner they were transporting crashed their plane and tried to kill every last one of them. That eerily abandoned place had creeped Jack out long before the madwoman had set her sights on him and added yet another bullet wound to his medical file. “I’m guessing this is more than just a courtesy call. What’s wrong?”

“Because of my father’s position,” Commander Wheeler began, “I have access to highly classified information that outranks even your organization and I received word today that she escaped. Harper Hayes. She took out every guard on her floor and nobody has seen her in days.”

“Course she did,” Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache forming. “Any leads on where she’s headin’? Do I need to get a team together?”

“This isn’t a call to arms,” the Commander quickly assured. “As far as everyone else, including your superiors, is concerned this conversation never happened. But you risked your life to save mine last year, and with the way things ended on that island I felt like you deserved a heads up.”

Jack’s head whipped around, scanning the empty room, making sure there was nobody around to hear the conversation. “You think she’s comin’ after me?”

“I’m not ruling it out as an option,” the other man admitted. “As crazy as she is, Agent? Who know’s what she’s planning. I just wanted to make sure you knew to keep an eye out.”

“I appreciate that, Sir,” Jack heard the faintest sounds of familiar laughter coming down the hallway so he jumped to his feet. “You do the same.” He had just enough time to end the call before the doorway opened.

“What took y’all so long?” He asked, waving the phone still in his hand. “I was getting ready to call, send out a search party or somethin’.”

Matty entered the War Room a few seconds later, while Mac was still frowning down at his watch, trying to figure out if they really were running late, and gave them the details for their next mission. They were in the air less than an hour later and Jack pushed all thoughts of Harper Hayes and Halloween and haunted islands to the back of his mind. Even if she was coming for him she would never find him in rural France, searching for an ambassador’s daughter abducted from her boarding school.

** _~M~_ **

That particular mission ran for three days. Three long days, with no rest. Jack finally finished up with his post-mission debrief at Phoenix and drove home just as the streetlights were beginning to blink on, one by one. He tossed his duffle bag into the closet, laundry and unpacking could wait, and headed straight for the shower. He fumbled his way, half asleep already, into a pair of pajama pants and collapsed into his bed.

He was awakened by a sharp pain in his thigh, jolting from one nightmare to another as he realized with panic, that he couldn’t move. Not to reach for the gun in the drawer beside his bed or to even turn on a light.

“Morning,” a voice called from just outside his frame of vision. He couldn’t see her, but it didn’t matter, Jack recognized the voice instantly.

“Hell’d you give me?” Jack asked, words slurring out of his mouth.

“Just a little paralytic,” Harper said, stepping closer to the bed. “Not much, but I had to make sure you can’t do anything stupid while we have a little chat.”

“I always thought drugs were cheatin’,” Jack tried to move again, hoping, since learning that the hindrance was caused by a drug and not traditional restraints that he could overpower the effects. No matter how hard he tried though, he was barely able to lift his head an inch off his pillow or wiggle his toes.

“Easy, cowboy,” A slow grin spread across Harper’s face as she watched him struggle. “Maybe I didn’t get the dose strong enough. Guess I can always keep you down the fun way...” And before Jack could blink she had climbed on top of him, straddling his hips.

“What… do you want?” Jack tried once more to move but it was futile. He was having a difficult enough time trying to remind his lungs how to keep working and let him speak at the same time, let alone knock her off of him.

“Nothing much,” She smiled again. “You see, I just found my way out of that hell hole you helped stick me in. So I’m making the rounds, stopping by to say hi to some old friends.”

“Don’t remember getting the memo ‘bout us bein’ friends,” Half of Jack’s mind was thinking that he needed to get a message to Commander Wheeler, after he checked in on all his kids, and the other half was busy realizing that his only hope now was to keep her distracted, talking long enough for the drugs to dissipate. That was the only way he stood a chance at taking her down.

“Oh, we’re not,” She assured, face turning serious all of the sudden. “I’m going to kill you. Just not right now.” Her lips warped back into a smile. “You see, Jack, we have a lot in common, you and I.”

He huffed out a laugh. “That’s funny. There’s a comedy club, few miles down the road, open mic nights on Thursdays. You should go. Bet that joke’d get a lotta laughs.”

She was unphased by his taunting. “I’m serious Jack. I’d be willing to bet your kill count is just as high as mine. Maybe higher. We’re both even former CIA. Took the same classes, went through the same training, climbed the same ranks, and moved on to bigger and better.”

“I don’t take a life if it can be avoided,” Jack’s eyes darkened at her assumption. “And when I do, it’s the bad ones, people like you, that I put in the ground. I save more than I don’t.”

“Maybe,” Harper shrugged. “For now. Until you get bored and move over to the fun side.”

“If that’s what you’re waitin’ on you might as well kill me now.”

“I already told you, Dalton,” Harper’s smile grew. “Not yet. It’s coming, but there’s no fun in taking you out now. Not like this. Like you said, drugs are cheating. No…” She trailed a finger down his chest. “I’m going to wait. It’s fun watching you squirm,” Her finger went lower, nails scraping against the elastic band of his pajama pants before tracing a path back up across his ribcage. “You see, I’m very good at what I do, Jack. It took them years to catch me. And the satisfaction I’m going to get from knowing that you won’t be able to rest, not truly, until I’m caught again? That I could be right around every corner, lurking in every dark room, the literal monster under your bed just waiting for the perfect moment? How uneasy that’s going to make you? That’s going to be almost as good as watching that light go out in those big brown eyes.”

Jack didn’t have an answer for that. At least not a response that wouldn’t give her more satisfaction than his silence, so he bit the insides of his cheeks until he tasted blood as her fingers trailed back across his chest and across his shoulders. “It’s a pretty scar,” She continued. “That I left you with. One year since I put that bullet in you. Did you even realize? That today was our anniversary, Jack? I see you got my gift.”

“What…?” Jack began but suddenly he remembered waking up to find the knife sticking out of his pillow. What he had brushed off as a silly Halloween prank became a lot more sinister. H.H. Harper Hayes. He should have put the pieces together as soon as he got the call from Commander Wheeler, but he hadn’t. Everyone had given him so much hell about how jumpy he got last Halloween that he hadn’t let anything get to him this year. He made sure of it. And because of that he had blindly walked right past the signs.

Tonight wasn’t even the first time she had been in his apartment. In his bedroom. Watching him sleep.

“Does it still hurt?” Harper’s eyes lit up at the mere thought. “Probably not all the time, not after a year. A strong, healthy guy like you? Bet it was healed up in a month. But after a hard mission? When you pushed yourself too far to save someone else? When it rains? In the cold? I bet you still feel it then. Reminds you of me.”

“Honestly, honey?” Jack tried moving his head again, side to side, and got a little more movement than last time. Still not enough though. “That little scratch wasn’t ever even in my top twenty battle wounds. Be hard-pressed to make it into my top fifty. “You haven’t crossed my mind since the day I watched them haul you off that island.”

“Really?” She drawled, shifting her weight slightly. Jack used her brief distraction to try and find his cell phone. He was pretty sure he remembered plugging it into the charge cord and tossing it on his nightstand before heading to the shower. He saw it, just the briefest glimpse, before Harper was talking again. “I guess we’ll have to do something about that.”

Attention fully focused back on her, Jack panicked, just slightly, upon seeing the knife in her hand. “I picked this out special for you, Jack,” She slowly twirled the blade between her fingers. “You must have liked it. I mean, you kept it, and right here beside your bed of all places. If that scar isn’t enough to remind you of me maybe I need to add to it...” She pressed the tip of her knife into the center of the mark left behind by the bullet. “Hurt yet?”

“I’ve had heartburn worse than that,” Jack smirked. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say since her only reply was to lean forward, pressing more weight directly onto the blade.

“How about now?” A trickle of blood ran from the wound, across his arm and onto the sheets below. The little voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like Mac at the moment advised him to keep his mouth shut.

“No?” Harper frowned. “Hmm… must be all that scar tissue. What if I do this?”

Jack couldn’t hold back a gasp as the knife was driven into his flesh deep enough that it stayed put when she let go.

“There we go, that’s a better reaction!” Harper sat back, running both hands appreciatively across his chest again. “You’re tough, I’ll give you that,” She admitted. “Tougher than most. I wonder just how tough the rest of your little team is.”

Jack’s eyes flashed, furious, threatening. “It would be in your best interest,” He warned, “Not to go anywhere near one of my kids.”

“See, that’s the one thing that is different about us, Jack. You actually give a damn about someone other than yourself.” She shifted her gaze, staring out the window instead of down at the bleeding man beneath her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt them. The fun’s going to be watching you scramble to protect them even more than you already do. It’s a shame though. That blonde one? I bet he’d be fun to break.”

Maybe it was her words, maybe it was the lustful look in her eyes when she spoke about hurting Mac, maybe it was the pain-triggered adrenaline coursing through his veins, or a combination of all three, but Jack was able to curl his fingers into a fist. It wasn’t much, but it was progress.

Of course, Harper noticed, reaching out and wrapping her hands around each of his. “Drugs starting to wear off? I guess that means our time has come to an end,” She leaned forward, sliding her hands up his arms as she went, caressing muscles. For a moment he thought she was going to kiss him, that the entire event had been some demented foreplay, but instead, she leaned down and whispered in his ear. “You know what? Maybe I will stop in and check up on your boy. See if those blue eyes of his look as pretty as yours do when they’re hurting.”

She climbed off of him, quickly, elegantly, grabbing the knife hilt as she swung her legs off the bed and twisting it, tearing a scream from Jack’s throat and widening the hole in his shoulder to a near-perfect circle the exact size of the original bullet wound. “I’ll leave that there,” She said from over her shoulder as she left the bedroom. “So you can remember me, even when the pain stops this time. And if I see MacGyver I’ll be sure to tell him you send your regards. Happy Halloween, Jack,” She called as his front door shut behind her.

Jack didn’t know how long he laid there bleeding and blinking away tears of frustration and worry and pain, unable to move. Eventually, he managed enough momentum to roll himself off the bed, arms flailing as he went to knock the cellphone to the floor with him. The movements drove the knife even further into his shoulder but as he lay panting on the floor, fumbling with uncoordinated fingers to dial Mac’s number, he didn’t care.

Six rings later Mac answered. “Jack?” He asked blearily and Jack could see him, clear as if he were watching the scene play out in front of him, sitting up in bed, frowning at his clock and rubbing sleepily at his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me you’re alright,” Jack ordered, “Right now, Angus, tell me you’re safe. Tell me she isn’t there.”

“Who?” There was the faintest sound of bed sheets rustling. “Who, Jack? I’m fine. What’s going on?”

“Harper Hayes,” Jack said, her name spoken like a curse. “She’s not at your place?”

“I promise, man, I’m fine,” Mac assured. “Why would you ask that? She’s been locked up for a year.”

Jack turned his head to stare at the black knife sticking out of his shoulder, pulsing blood onto his hardwood floors with every heartbeat. Her initials stared back at him, haunting worse than any ghost. He knew it was stupid. Every fiber of his being knew better, it was rudimentary first aid, a basic rule, but he couldn’t take that blade being in his shoulder for a second longer. He lifted his arm, that was finally mobile but felt as if it weighed a ton, grabbed ahold of the hilt, trying not to shudder at the thought of putting his own hands where her’s had been just moments before, and yanked it free with a squelch.

He might have blacked out for a brief moment because the next thing he knew, Mac was screaming in his ear. “...ack? Jack talk to me. Are you hurt? Was she there? Harper? What happened?”

“You’re sure you’re safe?” Jack asked again.

“Positive. But you’re not. What did she do?”

Jack slung his uninjured arm up towards the bed, grabbing blindly for a pillow. When he finally grasped one he ripped the case off it, wadding it into a ball and pressing it against the heavily bleeding wound with a groan. “If you’re sure you’re not hurt,” he said slowly “Then I think Imma need some help.” And the room went black.

_ **~M~** _

Jack was woken up to another knife being driven through his shoulder. That’s what it felt like, at least. In reality, it was just Mac, kneeling at his side with a pool of blood soaking into his plaid pajama bottoms, applying pressure to Jack’s wound. “Easy,” He said, scooting back as far as he could to get out of swinging range while still keeping steady hands on Jack’s shoulder when he came to. “Easy, I gotcha. It’s just me.”

“Mac?” Jack’s voice was hoarse. “You’re okay?”

“I’m not the one bleeding out in the middle of the night,” Mac sighed, moving one blood-covered hand to frustratedly brush messy hair out of his eyes with his forearm. “Seriously? Harper Hayes?”

“You’re safe?” Jack’s eyes scanned the room, searching for her in every shadow.

“I’m safe,” Mac assured.

Finally believing it, Jack found an energy reserve he didn’t even know he had remaining and jolted upright. Knife injury entirely forgotten, he pulled Mac in close for a hug. “I was so worried,” He mumbled into Mac’s shoulder, allowing his head to rest there until the black spots swimming in his vision faded.

“Everything’s okay,” Mac quickly wiped the worst of the blood from his hands onto his pants so he could wrap his hand around the back of Jack’s neck. It was a move Jack used on him quite frequently, when he was hurting or scared, and it always seemed to help. “We’re fine, I’m right here.” He waited until Jack’s breathing slowed down before pulling out of the embrace. “I’m not leaving, but I’m gonna lay you back down and grab the first aid kit from the bathroom, okay? It’ll only take a second. I’ve gotta patch that up with something other than a pillowcase before I get you to Medical.”

Jack nodded, instantly missing the comfort of Mac’s close proximity when he helped him back to the floor. “Bet that brain of yours is runnin’ a mile a minute,” Jack said, halfheartedly continuing to apply pressure to his shoulder. “Probably got a million questions.”

“A million and one,” Mac corrected with a forced grin. “At least. But they can wait. The only one I’m worried about right now is if you’re going to be okay or not.”

“Course I am,” Jack pried his eyes open to look up at his partner. “I got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of issues with last season’s Halloween episode. That was the one, for me, that I really felt them beginning to screw up when it came to writing Jack. I did, though, love the character of Harper Hayes. If I could have gotten any canon-compliant villain to come back for a bigger story arc it would have been her. I always loved the thought of her being to Jack what Murdoc is to Mac and what better time was there to play around with her being super creepy and coming back to haunt our favorite Delta than on the chapter that gets posted on Halloween? I honestly can’t believe I survived this month. It has been an absolutely crazy whirlwind but I have loved every second of it. Thank you to every single person who has read this little collection of whumps, I’ll never stop being in complete awe that people actually enjoy my writing. I always try to reply to each comment, every one of them means the world to me, but if I missed telling you specifically, thank you so so so so much for coming on this journey with me. I’m not sure when I’ll have my next fic up, there are still a few sitting half-finished in my WIP folder and plenty ideas I haven’t even begun to form into a cohesive story yet, but right now I’m just super excited to get caught up on all the fics I’ve put on a reading hiatus since all my spare time this month was spent writing. I love y’all, see you soon.


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